tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639Sun, 01 Feb 2015 08:20:42 +0000rpgdndtraveldungeons and dragonsdesignrole-playing gameGame Designawesomerole-playingshit that bugs mebones of a dead godfourth editionComoxSan FranciscoVancouvergame storerantFifth EditionI'm probably the only onegenconencounterfuck yesideasanal retentivenessbusinessdoing everything wrongrulessystembestiary of badasserydebatehouse rulesmetalproblemssession reviewthinking too muchundermountainconversionedition warsflavorskill challengetheorythird editionabilitycomic shopcreationcreaturedungeons dragonsfirst-levelgaminghomebrewrandomrandom designsexismEncountering DNDPlayer Typesactivismactual playarchetypesbaddndencdungeonshomebrew settingindiemagic itemnon-gamerspeculiar curiosstore newsworking at a game storeMagic: The Gatheringabusecampaignclasscombatconventiondramatic editingfeminism in gaminggns theoryhistoryone-page designone-page rpgplottingrestingskillsso you want to work in the games industrystore gamestorytellingtournamentwizards of the coastworld designBook of Erotic FantasyCCGCard GameErinGame MasteryMMOMTGSTOStar Trek OnlineableismalephGiantsbridgehttp://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)Blogger171125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-7493612433986557316Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:35:00 +00002014-08-19T12:49:01.131-07:00dnddungeonsdungeons and dragonsdungeons dragonsedition warsFifth Editiongamingrole-playing gamerpgsystemwizards of the coastFirst Impressions: Player’s Handbook, Fifth Edition<div class="MsoNormal">I haven't been posting a lot on this blog, mostly because I've haven't been as involved in the tabletop gaming community since my son was born. I've been playing a lot of League of Legends, and failing at it rather spectacularly. You can read about that <a href="http://solokill.blogspot.ca/">here</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But I picked up the new Player’s Handbook at Warp One today. I am always interested in a new edition, even if I'm not particularly hyped on playing it, and Fifth is no different. I haven’t delved deeply into it yet, but I figured I’d set out my initial impressions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The front cover of the book features a female adventurer in an action pose fighting some sort of bone-clad giant. Very cool. The logos are clean, the typeface very legible, and the borderless art makes the whole</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHOvvRgnM_U/U_Ok4FufWlI/AAAAAAAAB2M/0OnAAwwHBNw/s1600/cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHOvvRgnM_U/U_Ok4FufWlI/AAAAAAAAB2M/0OnAAwwHBNw/s1600/cover.png" height="320" width="244" /></a></div>cover look very modern while retaining a distinctive D&amp;D feel. The only issue I have with the design is the small red splash in the bottom left where they put “Dungeons &amp; Dragons” when they could have just put that at the top of the cover where the D&amp;D logo is. <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The content background is a skeumorphic parchment deal, the sort of thing you expect from any fantasy role-playing game with any production value. Chapter breaks are full-page art pieces and maintain the level of quality I expect from Wizards of the Coast. There are a lot of great examples of race and gender diversity, which is nice to see. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The book’s chapter layout returns to the terrible Third Edition style. Building a wizard will require you to keep three different pages bookmarked as you reference between them. Combat rules exist between your spellcasting classes and your spell lists, as a particular point of ugh. The overview of character creation is brief and to the point, and seems to assume a level of familiarity with role-playing games and how they work. &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The integration with Faerun really shows through in the Races section, where the tropes from that setting are very apparent. To quote the section on dark elves: “Were it not for one renowned exception the race of drow would be universally reviled.” It does not make allowances for settings like Eberon (in which drow are the mysterious denizens of darkest Xen’Drik), but instead fully embraces the Forgotten Realms as its assumed setting. I’m not a fan of the Forgotten Realms books, which may make this point stand out for me more than others, but it lacks some of the versatility I expect from the game’s basic setting. Greyhawk is generic enough a setting that any basic fantasy tropes can be crowbarred in without much work, where I feel </div>like the Forgotten Realms requires a level of specificity that reduces the game’s reach. <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The return of the half-orc and half-elf as crossbreeds, rather than as fully established races in their own regard, is a step in the wrong direction, I feel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">All of the Third Edition classes are in evidence, along with the addition of the warlock. The omission of the warlord class is notable. It’s difficult to really speak to things like class balance or niche protection without really delving into the game, but it seems to take a more Third Edition approach to both at first glance (which is to say little of either). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The lack of skill lists is a conspicuous departure from previous editions. Instead, players select a background, and that background provides access to skill proficiencies. Those proficiencies add a bonus to ability checks in situations where the skill would be relevant. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The equipment chapter is massive, with charts and descriptions for more stuff than you’ll probably ever need. Weapons, armor, adventuring gear, containers, tools, mounts and vehicles, and trade goods are all in evidence. There is a section on living a certain lifestyle. There’s even a section for “trinkets” which are simple items with a dash of mystery thrown in, to be used as possible adventure hooks or to add character to a player’s belongings. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Multiclassing is a two-page matter, now, and is much simpler than Fourth Edition multiclassing was. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Feats are back and seem more flavorful than in previous editions. Some of them are just “You’re pretty good at wrestling,” but others add new and interesting levels to the game. Lucky allows you to spend a small pool of points to roll another die if you roll poorly. Some of them increase your abilities by a point. One lets you give your party temporary hit points by speechifying at them. One gives you a bonus to use certain tools or skills. They’re interesting, and again would require a deeper delving into the book to really analyze. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HeykvNOwOuk/U_OljsgqohI/AAAAAAAAB2U/LP5PjUkGQbY/s1600/barbarian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HeykvNOwOuk/U_OljsgqohI/AAAAAAAAB2U/LP5PjUkGQbY/s1600/barbarian.jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a>There isn’t really anything sparkly or new in the Playing the Game or Adventuring sections of the book. Basic rules for rolling dice and movement and the like. Combat is quick and dirty in a Second Edition sort of way. No miniatures are needed, but I still generally like playing with them to keep track of stuff like who is flanking whom. Mounted combat gets some love in the last part of the chapter. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Spells have specific shapes again, and there’s a cute graphic of a gnome pointing at a chalk board with a cone, cube, sphere and cylinder on it. I’m assuming those same shapes will be used for stuff like dragon’s breath, as well. The spell list is three and a half pages long. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The replacement of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Astral</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Sea</st1:placetype></st1:place>as it was envisioned in Fourth Edition is probably one of the most egregious mistakes of this edition so far. The <st1:placename w:st="on">Astral</st1:placename><st1:placetype w:st="on">Sea</st1:placetype> was an incredible concept for adventuring at a multi-planar phase of a character’s career, and while Fourth failed in Paragon in a lot of ways, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Astral</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Sea</st1:placetype></st1:place>was not one of those. My games will likely retain it, because it’s just too good to not use. The cosmology in general has gone back to a much more drab and boring place, which is a shame to see. The retention of the Shadowfell and Feywild make the loss of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Astral</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Sea</st1:placetype></st1:place> all the more disappointing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The sketches of the Conditions in the appendix are all basically perfect, and I appreciate that there are some critters to fight in the back of the book, though I don’t feel that it makes up for the wonky release schedule of a core book every month. I really liked being able to buy all three core books at once in the form of a boxed set on release, and I was under the impression that the new edition would be released the same way. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Initial Conclusions</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">The book is pretty and well designed, even if the chapter layout is something of a misstep. There are some things from Fourth Edition I feel are missing without good cause, while a lot of the choices made in the game’s design seem intent on bringing things back to a Third Edition place, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. There is plenty of interesting design space, but the basic setting being one as notable as the Forgotten Realms feels like it might be holding some of that potential back. There were some choices made that seemed a little too safe, and others that seemed very strange. It feels like Dungeons &amp; Dragons, but it also feels like it doesn’t have anything new to say.&nbsp;</div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-impressions-players-handbook.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-4120725082927480472Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:50:00 +00002013-03-19T14:50:47.482-07:00Art vs Design in Role-playing Games<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Not all role-playing games were designed. Some of them were instead created, and there is a distinct difference between the two.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not a designer or an artist, so this is sort of a difficult topic for me to write on. If I happen to offend either artists or designers by way of this writing, let me now chalk it up to my ignorance of your profession. I’ve been doing some research, but the gods alone know that reading is no replacement for first-hand experience. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">According to <a href="http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/the-difference-between-art-and-design/">some people</a>, the difference between art and design is a matter of intent. Design is meant to motivate, to influence a person to take a certain set of actions or to partake of an existent experience in a new and interesting way. Art is meant to inspire; what it inspires is less important than the inspiration itself. Where design is meant to communicate about a thing that already exists, art is meant to share a feeling. Art can be interpreted, different people can talk about a piece’s emotional impact, and each person can have a different viewpoint on it. Good design, by contrast, is unambiguous. It is simply understood. And perhaps most importantly, art is a talent, it’s something you’re born with and develop in your own directions. Design is a skill. Poor designers become better designers through sheer force of education and practice. No amount of education or practice will make a bad artist a good artist; they will have more tools at their disposal, but will still be incapable of eliciting emotional response. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is, obviously, a great deal over overlap, but that’s the gist of where the line lives.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So what does any of this have to do with games?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When someone makes a role-playing game, we say that game is “designed.” That the person who made the game is a “game designer,” and I think those are misnomers. Not everyone who makes a role-playing game is a designer. Some of them are making games because they are expressing something, they are trying to reach you on an emotional level (even if that emotional level is “Whoa! Cool!”).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">For examples, I’m going to use two different versions of Dungeons &amp; Dragons: First Edition and Fourth Edition. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">First Edition D&amp;D was a work of expression, it was meant to convey an experience. In particular, the motivations of Gygax, Arneson and crew was to recreate the experiences of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings within the constraints of a tactical war game. The rules were a slapdash bit of cut-and-glue from previous games, and were hardly the focal point of the game. Instead, the game focused on the experience of play, rather than a hard and well-defined set of rules, and I think that’s part of what got people into it. It was an emotionally resonant experience, one that could be interpreted differently by every person who played it. So much so, that the players took to the game in very, very different ways across the United States. Some played to the game’s tactical strategy elements, others wanted to actually build a story out of the play, and yet others were trying to create verisimilitude with the real world in their fantastic role-play scenarios. All of those things were valid approaches to the game. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fourth Edition D&amp;D was a work of design. It is a textbook that tells you exactly how to play Dungeons &amp; Dragons Fourth Edition. There is very little lee-way. The experience is very predictable. There aren’t a lot of ways to bust the game open, and there aren’t a ton of different ways to play it. Now, most gamers see that as a thing that is universally bad, but for new players it’s ideal. Think of games like Magic: The Gathering (another very designed game); the game plays the same way every single time, but it’s still a compelling, interesting game. Sometimes, new formats will come out to freshen things up a bit (Commander, Planechase), but for the most part you know what you’re getting into with the game, and that makes it a lot more comfortable to play. Fourth Edition is similar, it’s designed to provide a standardized experience within which there is a great deal of deeper play. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">An example of a designed game that sits better with people would be Dungeon World. There are a number of good design choices in Dungeon World that enhance the play experience in neat ways. The game’s structure is simple, but very established: the players act, the GM (being the environment and opponents et al) reacts to their actions. The game’s rules provide a solid framework for play that will be similar each time the party gets together, and the rules are central to the narrative flow. The reason I didn’t choose Dungeon World as the first example for designed games is that it is also very artistic. It wants to express the feeling of playing Old School games, and does so through the medium of Newfangled Forge games. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And most role-playing games fall somewhere along a spectrum. Mouse Guard is more designed than artistic, but has a strong artistic showing. Palladium games have a ton of rules text, but clearly lean towards art over design. Pathfinder walks a pretty fine line between the two. And there are games I feel fit much more closely into one category than the other: HERO is designed; Don’t Rest Your Head is artistic; 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars is artistic; Marvel Superhero RPG is designed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure there’s really a point to this post other than an exploration of possible avenues for game critique we don’t look at often. Is a game art or is it design? Is it expression or instruction or a mixture of both? Can a game judged harshly for its “flawed design” still stand up as a piece of art? I would be willing to say so. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s take RIFTS as an example. RIFTS is not well designed. It is obtuse, difficult to play, filled with strange contradictions of system, and riddled with poor design choices. It is also one of the best-sellers at the game store I work at, so it has to have something going for it, right? I think that thing is art. RIFTS as an expression of Kevin Siembieda’s ideal game, is an interesting artifact, and it communicates a lot about the man who wrote it. While on the surface it might seem a ridiculous hodge-podge of science fiction and fantasy tropes, it is in fact a deliberate collection of ideas that Mr. Siembieda finds evocative and interesting. It’s the role-playing game equivalent of a Dave McKean collage if all the components were provided by Larry Elmore and William Gibson. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So do with that what you will, I guess.</div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/03/art-vs-design-in-role-playing-games.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-6054596083863636781Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:49:00 +00002013-01-20T08:49:09.484-08:00Puerto Vallarta, Part SixWe spent an entire day on the beach. It was fucking lovely.<br /><br />Then we came home.<br /><br />The guy in front of N on the second half of the trip was a total douche bag and kept throwing himself into the back of his chair to hit in her in the face with it while she slept. I wanted to give him a stern talking to. N wished him a slow death by stomach cancer. That should give you a pretty decent idea about the difference in our&nbsp;temperaments.<br /><br />Game Stuff<br /><br />I'm going to go play League of Legends on non-resort internet. Win!http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/puerto-vallarta-part-six.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-3130042047214096366Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:46:00 +00002013-01-17T22:46:46.359-08:00Puerta Vallarta, Part Five<br /><div class="MsoNormal">We got off to something of a slow start this morning. I was up really late, and none of us has had an easy time sleeping here, so it was well after eleven before we got our poop in a group and headed out. Today was Town Day, the day we’d decided we were going to see some of Old Town, the flea market, El Malecon and eat some good food. I tried to get a cup of coffee before the trip, because I am barely human without caffeine in my system, and ended up having to leave because the Starbucks staff was having a particularly difficult time with a lady’s credit card. Because I had not yet had my first coffee of the day, I hated them to my core. All of them. Forever. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The bus had a board nailed over a hole in the floor. The ride was incredibly hot, as Puerto Vallarta was rocking a solid 27<sup>o </sup>C (80.6<sup>o </sup>F) on the way out and for most of the day. Still, the scenery was quite nice, and we all decided to judge our previous bus driver much more harshly for calling out “Last stop,” before driving off with people still on the bus because our latest driver did no such thing and we got quite a bit closer to the boardwalk because of it. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">N was a trooper today, walking for hours despite a heavy belly, swollen feet and a back that hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a week. We got off the main drag pretty early, and were treated to some of Puerto Vallarta’s slightly less visible gems: a gate trimmed in gold, a beautiful spiral staircase that led to a platform made of sticks, a parapet, crumbling old brick buildings and beautiful white plaster masterpieces, a restaurant painted like a huge work of graffiti, a rocky beach where locals sip pale yellow beers and don’t bellow their wares at you. It was nice to get another look at the city that lives just beyond the tourist plazas and resort malls, though I caught more than a few dirty looks as we made our way.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">With a little foresight, we could have planned a bus trip straight to the Malecon, but where’s the adventure in that? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">El Malecon is like an outdoor tourist mall. Standing on the beach, you can see where it starts: everything is pristine and beautiful, nothing is falling apart, the buildings are well kept, the statues are polished, and every restaurant is offering some sort of deal on food, booze, or both. We wandered a little aimlessly, shooing off the persistent salespeople who insisted we should go to this restaurant or go into that shop, or take this tour, or make these reservations. We took in the statues, from the man with a half-skull face holding a pair of swords to what could only be described as a matron yelling at two young girls on a ladder to be careful (Z postulates that the statue was actually a single alchemist creating two homunculi in her own image). There was the statue of the boy riding a seahorse that is in every advert for the city, and a pair of naval mines we’d seen in the airport. There was a mermaid and a merman looking at one another in apparent conflict; I was particularly impressed with the attention to detail on the hair. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, and we forgot to bring anything that takes pictures. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Getting peckish, we decided to see what the area had for food. We had no intention of eating at Senor Frogs, and have thus far managed to keep to that, so we chose to get off the main drag again and see what we could find as far as more local cuisine goes.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When we were getting off our plane and into the city, there was a fellow who was both incredibly helpful and determined to sell us a timeshare. I don’t make nearly enough money to buy a timeshare (my income, combined with N’s, wouldn’t come to half of what you need to buy a timeshare). Z works at the same place I do. But he did give us a lot of information about the city that we have found really valuable. He told us about buses and where we could find one at our resort, he told us about the Malecon in the first place, and about tours and activities we could partake in, he told us about the city’s main cathedral, and he’d also told us about a restaurant we’d need to try if we were in the Malecon area. N suggested we start walking towards that, and if we found anywhere else that looked like it would be a good place to eat, we’d stop there instead. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">First, we were confronted with the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Turns out, the Cathedral was pretty much exactly on our way to the restaurant, and we had completely missed that we were getting closer to it. The place is gorgeous, but I’m not really a Cathedral guy. I’m not Christian, for one thing, and certainly not Catholic. Also, there’s a sign at the front that tells you, in Spanish, exactly what you’re not allowed to wear, but it doesn’t make it all that clear in English, so while I was able to go in and take a boo around, N and Z decided to stay as near the entrance as possible because neither was wearing their Sunday Best.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m always in my Sunday Best.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Cathedral is a beautiful example of Mexican Catholic piety, with incredible stained glass windows and a giant, tortured-looking Jesus Christ fairly close to the entrance. There are pews, and there were people praying at them, and there was a crucifix off-center at the front of the worship hall. I didn’t stay long, and I certainly didn’t explore or anything, but it was a neat little bit of architecture in a city that is filled to the gills with nifty architecture. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To get to the restaurant in question, a place called Pipis that apparently enjoys an international reputation, we worked our way through streets just off the main. If you were to come at the place from the main drag, it’s a single block away, and that block has a number of cute tourist shops. Coming from the direction we did, we got narrow streets and tiny corner stores, a couple of beautiful restaurants that weren’t really what we were looking for (I don’t come to Mexico to eat Italian food!) and school kids just getting out of class in their smart-looking white and red uniforms. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The restaurant was clearly designed with tourists in mind. It’s the sort of clean, Americanized eating experience that makes for a good meal, but not necessarily a memorable one. Where the first in-town restaurant we ate at was chock full of local flavor and small-town charm, Pipis is a well-built, well marketed, American-style Mexican restaurant. The food was undeniably better prepared, with fresh ingredients and a keen understanding of seasoning for a Gringo tongue. But the place oozed with stereotypes, from the musicians playing La Cucaracha to the signs offering a big bowl margarita. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I had the “Aztec” soup to start, which was just a tortilla soup. It was spicy and well balanced, and the avocado slices helped cool the tongue a bit, but I was hoping for something a little more exotic. I had the Supreme Fajita, which was a beef/chicken/shrimp stew with onions, peppers and mushrooms, served with a plate of guacamole, refried beans and salsa and soft tortilla shells to wrap it all in. Z went with the beef fajita, which was the same thing minus the chicken and shrimp (fellow doesn’t much care for seafood). N went with the Fajita Burrito, which was a monster. It was easily a hand-and-a-half long and would have taken two hands to wrap around, served with refried beans and iceberg lettuce. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was far too much food, which is pretty much the best way to do food. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On our way out, we crossed paths with a pack of stray dogs. They were clearly starving, ribs showing through their fur, and they were digging through garbage looking for something to eat. There were a bunch of different breeds, from small lapdogs to larger hunting-breed mutts, and it was deeply saddening to see suffering creatures so near the luxurious resort side of town. They noticed us looking at them and started following us some, interested in N’s leftovers, and we hurried on towards the flea market, but not before stopping at one of the incredibly small corner stores to pick up a Mexican Fresca, a thing about which Z has been quite excited since noticing them. He was hoping they were the same as a great Fresca he’d had as a child – he was happy with the experience, and I found it largely to my liking as well.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a rope bridge. I think that any time an excursion involves a rope bridge, it’s officially an adventure. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Across the river, there were dozens of kiosks where people had their wares out for display. If the Malecon was annoying for having salespeople approach you, the flea market was ten times as bad. We couldn’t pass a kiosk without someone telling us to go in, asking us to look at something, telling us how good the deals were or asking if we were looking to get high. The stuff for sale was all the same kitschy souvenir bullshit you can find all over Mexico, with the inclusion of large knives and bullwhips, so we didn’t spend a ton of time there. N bought a present for her friend T. Z and I picked up a present for the boss that we think he’s going to like and on which we spent entirely more than we should have. Then we made the slow trek home, bellies filled with food that insisted on naps immediately. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Tonight, N and I spent some time at the pool cooling off after the long, hot trek into town, and spoke with some precocious children about how awesome Canada is. Canada, for the record, is pretty awesome. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Game Stuff<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So, I basically had a random encounter today. I wasn’t expecting to see a pack of stray dogs. I certainly wasn’t expecting them to take any sort of interest in us. And I wasn’t scared of them, I was sad for them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the things I’ve been thinking about in regards to role-playing games is the concept of Engagement play. We don’t always play role-playing games because they’re fun (or at least, I don’t). Sometimes, I play incredibly difficult games. Sometimes, I’ve played games that have made me sad or hurt my feelings or made me angry or brought me a sense of happiness. Games of all sorts are a vessel for experience, and the range of experiences that can be brought out by role-playing is incredibly wide. Wider, I think, than any other sort of game. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">While this is just a brief note rather than an exhaustive study on the subject, I felt it was worth bringing up, at the very least. Sometimes I want a random encounter to hit me in the feels, and I think that’s something we should be looking at carefully.<o:p></o:p></div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/puerta-vallarta-part-five.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-6766349164612499955Thu, 17 Jan 2013 06:12:00 +00002013-01-16T22:12:19.045-08:00Puerto Vallarta, Part FourI slept in today. I'm on vacation, so I'm allowed to do that from time to time.<br /><br />Today was one of those awesome days in a vacation when you don't do much of anything at all. We woke up late and ate breakfast at a waffle shop in the mall. I had the huevos divorciados while my compatriots had waffles and pancakes. The eggs were done over-hard (it's how I always have my eggs given the choice) with green salsa on one side and red salsa on the other. Between them was a line of refried beans and tortilla chips. It was tasty enough, but desperately wanted some hot sauce, which was later provided.<br /><br />If you haven't been able to guess, I really like food. I'm a pudgy dude, and I spent a couple of years apprenticing to be a chef, and many more in high school Food Science class. So I have a certain expectation of my food when eating abroad in that I want it to be a great example of the cuisine of the land. When I was in Paris, I had the Lapin a la Cocotte. In London, I went out of my way to have a Full English Breakfast. I had chocolate sprinkle sandwiches in Amsterdam, and when I'm in the States, I eat like a fatty fat slob (Steak and Shake, I both love and hate you...). So when I eat Mexican food in Mexico, I'm after the real deal. I want spicy salsas and flavorful tacos and beautiful chimichangas and creamy guacamoles. I'm looking forward to going back to that restaurant in town tomorrow. It was both less expensive and the food was incredible.<br /><br />In my long-standing grudge against the ocean, I've chosen to arm myself. We hit the beach today, this time armed with boogie boards. Boogie boarding is a lot like surfing for people who don't know how to surf, and is also a lot like flailing around in the water for people who don't know how to boogie board. For the record, &nbsp;my understanding of boogie boarding is at a pre-school level. I'm terrible. I never catch the belly of the wave, instead catching the crest and floating along for a second before tumbling back into the ocean. N and Z were doing much better, with Z having the clear advantage. Having now done some research, I can see that I have been working with equipment not well suited to me; I'm too tall for the boards they'd given us, but they were free, so I'm hardly complaining.<br /><br />I did catch one wave, which was pretty exhilerating. It felt something like flying over the surface of the water like one of the many sorts of birds that lives in the area, skimming across the water effortlessly. It was a lot of fun, and it's probably something I'm going to try again the next time I'm in an area conducive to it.<br /><br />I spent a lot of time writing in a Starbucks today. I understand that this doesn't sound like the sort of thing you do on a Mexican vacation, but I find that spending too much time focusing on the place you're in begins to dull you to it a touch. I'm on an adventure, but at the same time, it's a chance for me to catch up on a couple of projects I've been putting off and to make some room for new projects. I've been working on a new role-playing game project, one that I think is pretty neat. I'm putting together my ideas for the Extreme Library as a campaign book or adventure path. I'm not really sure how I'm going to publish it, if I ever get it done (most of my projects like this die sometime during the part where I have to make the words march on paper), but it will likely be an online thing.<br /><br />The girl behind the counter at the coffee shop asked if I had a girlfriend and seemed a little put out that I'm married. So there's that.<br /><br />I took an afternoon nap, as I wasn't feeling very well, during which I had gods-awful dreams about my wife and our unborn child dying during birth. I've just looked up the statistics on that in Canada, and while it's not a zero percent chance, I'm feeling a bit better about it. Still, the dream was horrific, and N and I had a chat about it after I woke up. We decided it was a good occasion to go out for a romantic dinner and walk on the beach, which was entirely lovely. The moon was out for the first time since our arrival, and a few stars dared peek out from among the clouds. I stepped on a crab, but he seemed okay when he scuttled out from under my foot (I couldn't see him, I'm just guessing), and we chased some birds who were eating whatever was in the waves as they came up on the beach. The bed we've been sleeping on is really firm, and N is really feeling her pregnancy this week, so I really appreciate her making the extra effort to come out and reassure me.<br /><br />Game Stuff<br /><br />There are some things I could write about today - regional food, boogie boarding, ideas for Z's new game <i>Hero of the Beach, </i>or, as I like to call it <i>Whoa Dude: Seriously Dude, Whoa. </i>I could write about pregnancy and how to handle it in-game or even if you should, or I could write about various bits of accommodation while traveling as a factor in the places you stay - I mean, we're in the nicest condo I've ever stepped foot within, and the bed is still really uncomfortable. Instead, I figure I'll share what I was writing today in Starbucks and see how y'all dig that.<br /><br /><br /><h2>The Extreme Library</h2><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Libraries are where it all begins.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;-&nbsp;</span><!--[endif]-->Rita Dove<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><h3><b>Ten Things About the Extreme Library</b></h3><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Extreme Library is not like other libraries, and bears resemblance to them in only a few ways. The ways in which it resembles a real library are thus: it is a place that contains books, there is something that resembles an organizational system, and there are people who will help you get the books you are looking for. The ways in which it does not resemble a typical library are slightly more numerous.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>First, it is built into the side of a cliff</b>, endless shelves open to the elements. The cliff has no bottom that anyone has ever found, and it is thought that the library grows out from the realm of some long-forgotten – perhaps dead – god of knowledge and learning. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Second, the organization of the books is hardly ideal</b>. The Library is fabled for having at least one copy of every book that has ever been imagined (including every book ever published in every language). Books that are published are nearest the top, with books that were only a fleeting idea near the bottom of broad, poorly organized “sections.” There is a “History Section,” certainly, but it contains everything from the histories of real nations to histories of those nations as imagined by the insane. There is a book in that section that is every thought Grand Emperor Zan Shoa ever had; “Zan Shoa” is a character not known to exist in true history or in any popular fiction. There are comprehensive histories of events that never happened, of people who were entirely unimportant to world events, of things that were the subject of wild dreams or flights of fancy. This sort of thing is true of every Section of the Library, and the divisions between one Section and the other are largely arbitrary and make no sort of sense.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Third, there are things that live in the Library</b>. Many of them are the sorts of things you would expect to see living on the face of a cliff, but twisted by the strange magic of the place. Birds, bats, rodents, insects, spiders; all have been reshaped and remade into the image of the library. You will not find a bird that is just a bird, it will be an origami bird built from the pages of a philosophy text. Bats are built from hardcovers, their heads jutting awkwardly from the spine. The rats are made from quills, the insects typewriter keys and fingers. The spiders build trap doors beneath the tomes, waiting for an unsuspecting Librarian to pull out an important book. Moreover, there are things that have moved into the Library. There are at least three tribes of goblins that are known to the Librarians, for instance. A group of trolls lives a day’s climb from the top in Pseudo-Anonymous Autobiographies. There are at least a dozen dragons, though no one has come face-to-face with one and lived to tell of it – they can be seen sometimes, circling, hunting. And perhaps worst of all, there are the creations of the library itself: the haiku elementals, the stream-of-consciousness-shadow-monsters, the half-formed-idea swarms, the mimics. There are whispers of monsters both horrifying and beautiful in the deepest depths, and scarred veterans will swear up and down that they’ve met the worst the Library has to offer. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Fourth, the Librarians are adventurers</b>. Getting a book out of the Extreme Library requires a man or woman of spectacular fortitude, wit, and dedication. It can often be like finding a needle in a haystack. The Librarians are a unique lot, consisting of as many warriors, wizards and rogues as scholars. There is a mercenary air about them: they are a rag-tag group in it for the gold and the experience, and that shows in the way they carry themselves. The only unifying ideal the group holds would be a love of books, an appreciation of knowledge. Beyond that, Librarians are as diverse and rag-tag as any other group of adventurers. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Fifth, the most important books in the world can be found here</b>. That book of apocalyptically powerful spells you wanted to own when you were in wizard school? Yeah, it’s here. The book that describes how to attain godly power? Also here, somewhere. A book that will immediately make the reader the most charismatic intelligent creature on the plane? Yeah, that’ll be in Self Help. If a book can be imagined, it is located somewhere in the library. Seriously, if you have ever thought about an overpowered magic tome, it is totally in this library somewhere for a brave enough adventurer to find. That makes the Library an incredibly lucrative business. People will pay top dollar for trained Librarians to make excursions to find a specific book, a book they have just thought up. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Sixth, the Library is organic</b>. It heals when it’s damaged. It grows new sections. New books are being created every day and circulating throughout the various Sections. No one really knows how it works, or why, but the Library is constantly changing, constantly shifting and building. This makes it more difficult to locate the books you’re looking for, and also makes it damned near impossible to predict how the Library may react to any given event. Sometimes, a section burns down and is replaced by the same thing; other times, something entirely different takes its place. There has never been an accurate map of the Library, and any attempts to map the area have been met with a great deal of frustration. There is, however, an up-to-date atlas of the Library somewhere in the Library itself that was imagined by Headmaster Aufast Nordlebrink. No one has ever found it, and there have been a dozen Headmasters since. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Seventh, the Library is not national</b>. While many nations have attempted to claim the Library as their own, none has ever been able to hold it, and the laws passed that relate to the Library are universally ignored by both the Librarians and their patrons. The Library’s remote location makes it a position of strategic unimportance (it’s on a cliff in the middle of nowhere), but it is thought that possessing the Library provides a great deal of political clout. <o:p></o:p></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br /><i>Kings and Emperors have occasionally tried to take the Library by force. The Librarians have never put up a fight, but maintain that looking for a book for a King costs the same as for anyone else. In one famous example, a conquering king tried to side-step the Librarians and send his own army in search of a book that would make his words instantly binding to those who heard them.&nbsp;</i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>The army did not come back. Two weeks later, the conqueror had died of a terrible malady, and a card was delivered to the Library by an imp. The card read “We regret to inform you that the book you seek has been checked out,” in a tight, perfect script. That card is still on display at the Longhouse.</i></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Eighth, there is more than one thing that is called the “Library.”</b>While the Extreme Library proper is a cliff face covered in books, there are other things commonly referred to as the “Extreme Library.” There is a small village that exists near the cliff’s edge that serve to shelter Librarians and the books they’ve retrieved. There is a longhouse near the Library where the most important Librarians (the Headmaster and his council, who are largely responsible for the upkeep of the village and for dealing with patrons) live and work. There is the Vault, which is a huge, fortified building in which the most dangerous books ever retrieved from the Library rest with layers upon layers of protection. Any of these might be called the “Extreme Library.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Ninth, the Library does book transfers</b>. The fact that the Library as a copy of every single book that has ever been imagined means that when one is removed from the library, another copy takes its place. One of the biggest reasons the Vault exists so near the cliff-edge is that books that close to the Library proper rarely cause the library to spawn new copies. So if a more conventional library or book collector requires a book, the Extreme Library is often happy to send a copy of the book for an appropriate price. Librarians always accompany books when they are on transfer, often a small team of them. Book transfers rarely occur for books that are not incredibly difficult to find, dangerous, or both. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Tenth, the Library is a place filled with mysteries</b>. There is an enormous steel safe with a lock tall enough to stand in (but don’t, because it will electrocute you). Chains secure it to the cliff face, and bolts the size of an ogre’s hands bolt those chains to the cliff wall. No books grow within ten yards of the place. No one knows why. There is an old man who lives three day’s climb from the top of the cliff, and maintains something of a modest book-garden there. He keeps old, hard-to-find volumes, and is often willing to offer advice or some small amount of help. No one knows who he is, but he’s been there through two dozen Headmasters and has been referenced as far back as a thousand years ago. There is a statue of an ibis’ face that juts out of the bottom of an overhang, facing straight down. It looks concerned. Only one kind of plant has ever been found to grow on the cliff-face, a kind of phosphorescent lichen that produces just enough light to comfortably read by at night. Attempting to grow this lichen anywhere else has proven universally futile; it dies within a couple of days. Ten days’ climb from the edge, there is a hundred-yard garden of this lichen that grows into the shapes of people who have stopped there. There is a podium in the Encyclopedias in Fictional Languages Section that will change the text of a book in any language to any other language, but it seems to intentionally omit key sections of text, or change the context of paragraphs to mean something very different from the original text. There is a swarm of glyph-shaped biting insects that lives over the Prohibited Works, Forgeries and Hoaxes Section of the library; they only attack people who don't have a banned book on their person. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of examples of this sort of weirdness, and the further down one travels, the more one is to find something deeply unnerving and strange in the Library's depths.&nbsp;</div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/puerto-vallarta-part-four.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-6913383041277130192Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:57:00 +00002013-01-15T18:57:02.318-08:00Puerta Vallarta, Part Three<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Yesterday, we tried to go out snorkeling and couldn’t. The only snorkeling crews around were full, and the earliest one the next day wouldn’t accept pregnant ladies. Given that my wife is really, really pregnant, we went with the company offering “light” snorkeling today, and were not at all disappointed. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The tour started off at 8:45 in the morning, and I was chronically afraid we were going to be late. N and Z both took their time getting breakfast down, while I paced around nervously hoping that the boat wouldn’t leave without us. I’d already paid $300 to be on that boat. Turns out, the boat took some time getting itself figured out, and rather than the sleek green sailboat number we were looking at, we got what looked like a bit of a clunker called the Isis. I noticed the Isis was hauling a smaller craft called the Osiris, and decided I liked this crew better for the Egyptian mythology references. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m a sucker for Egyptian mythology. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We took a slow, meandering ride out of the marina and into the bay, and were almost immediately confronted with the sight of humpback whales spouting, a wee cub and her mother. The cub was only a few days old, and tiny in comparison to her enormous mom, and they came to the surface a dozen times to breathe. The cub was a playful sort and breached for us briefly before diving down for a longer run. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We were another ten minutes before we saw our first breaching bull humpbacks, and they were incredible. A small group of three or four bulls were trying to impress a cow, and one particularly energetic fellow had tossed himself into the air to do it. The guide told us that it was very rare to see a breaching humpback, and that we were lucky to… Another one! And another! Right after we were told that we shouldn’t expect more, the same whale threw himself into the air a half dozen times, almost hitting a boat in the process. It was incredible. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The size of these animals is unfathomable. Look at all the scale pictures you want. Try and imagine what a whale must look like. It won’t make a lick of difference, because the real thing strikes a sense of awe into you like no other creature can. This is the second-largest animal to have ever lived on the planet. Seventeen meters seems like a lot, and then you actually see what seventeen meters MEANS, and it’s a whole different kettle of fish.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And then you realize that the monstrous creature before you is actually a size category smaller than a ancient red dragon – at sixteen meters and forty-five tonnes, it is only a “Huge” creature. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We were apparently very lucky to have seen any breaching at all, but we saw at least a dozen examples by the trip’s end, as well as a few infant whales, a sea turtle, and a flock of birds eating a school of fish near the surface of the ocean. All in all, we had a really lucky day for sight-seeing.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When we got to the Marieta Islands, a small archipelago off the coast of Nayarit, we donned our flippers and masks and dove into the water. Just below the surface of the water were hundreds of fish of all shapes, sizes and colors. We swam through a nearly-submerged cave to a hidden beach beneath the island, and while the rest of the tour went for a short cave-walk, I explored outside, marveling at the ridiculous amounts of life just below the water. I don’t have names for half the fish I saw, and of the ones I recognized, I’m willing to admit I only know of them because I’ve watched Finding Nemo. I don’t know nearly enough about the ocean – a sentiment I share with basically everyone, I think – and I always enjoy an opportunity to explore it. N, who suffers from some claustrophobia, was able to put on a mask and put her face underwater for the first time on this trip, and I’m really happy she was able to share that experience with me. I wish I’d gotten a picture of the cave, but I hadn’t the foresight to buy a waterproof camera prior to our tour, and I wasn’t about to get my iPad wet. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is nothing scarier in the entire world than swimming through a cave while breathing through a tube. You have nothing but darkness and the sound of your own breathing to comfort you. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the way back, we ate a delicious lunch that featured ham and cheese sandwiches, rice salad, guacamole, and some vegetables in a sauce that was apparently two and a half times spicier than jalapenos. It was delicious. Almost nothing happened on the way back, beyond the crew opening the sails and turning off the motor. That in itself was something of a treat, as I’ve never been on a sailing ship that was actually sailing; I’ve always been on ships that ran on motors. It was also a brilliant form of torture. N and I, having just dried off and warmed up from our excursions under water, were treated to blasts of cold sea-water as the ship lurched in the first swells, and though it evened out over the course of the trip, we never properly dried off again. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Then we came home and ate dinner. I ate seafood out of half a pineapple. It had too many pineapple chunks for my liking. Maybe I should have expected that. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Game Stuff<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I tossed around a few ideas for Game Stuff on this blog post, and all of them were pretty okay. One was about phased quests and pacing, how you can have interesting stuff happen at a few set points over the course of your story and still keep it interesting, compact, and fun. Another was about sea monsters, because God. Damn. Giant. Whales. Another was a short adventure that uses diving and exploration as the main conflict points instead of Fight. Another was a cool location that was an island with a skull on it (for those in the know, the second island in the Marieta chain has an awesome skull on one of its faces). So I had some ideas. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">What I think I’m going to talk about today, though, is a pretty common misconception, I feel. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Your character’s life doesn’t have to be constantly interesting. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This is maybe a Game Master problem than a player problem, but I think it’s one that could use addressing on both sides. I see this most often in sea travel, because sea travel is tough to pace properly. Rather than use sea travel as Just Another Form of Travel, the inclination is to use it as a sort of secondary dungeon, because the sea is treacherous or something, so you have to. And clearly this stems from an uneducated idea of water travel, because anyone who has done a lot of travel by water knows that there is nothing more treacherous about water travel than there is about air travel or car travel. It’s a little more uncomfortable most of the time, sure. But the ocean isn’t any more likely to treat you like an asshole than snow is. And snow is deeply, incredibly boring to anyone who knows how to deal with it. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I think part of the problem is that most people don’t travel by sea anymore. As an aside, I was in Las Vegas for GAMA last year, and one of the things I noticed was that the people there don’t know how to drive in the rain. For me, being a Canadian and having grown up with Canadian drivers, this seemed entirely ludicrous. There was barely a drizzle, and people were driving like it was Rainmageddon 2012. I saw one guy actually drive into a meridian because he couldn’t figure out how much hydroplaning he was going to do. The answer was none. Zero hydroplaning. Because it’s fucking drizzling out. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Like I said, I’m a Canadian. We drive in worse conditions all the time (well, I don’t, because I don’t drive, but that’s another blog post entirely). We know full well that you should drive a touch slower, give a bit more room in the front, and otherwise drive like normal, because rain is like a really mild case of snow. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Most people are to the ocean what Las Vegas drivers are to rain. They overblow it. They don’t understand it. They don’t realize that they can make the turn normally and they drive headfirst into sea serpents. Every goddamn time. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Traveling by sea is boring. Let me say this one more time to make sure I have everyone: SEA TRAVEL IS BORING. It takes hours and hours, you get nothing to look at really, it’s kind of cold, it rocks back and forth nauseatingly, a lot of people get proper sick, and then… Presto, you’re where you were trying to get. Even storms are more often a complication than a disaster. It rains on the ocean all the time, and most people get by okay. I’ve lived through two ocean storms with nothing worse than an upset stomach to show for it. I’ve only been visiting the ocean since 2008. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;There is an inclination to make your characters’ lives as interesting as possible, to fill every hour doing something you’ve never done with adventure and derring do. But seriously, that’s not the way the world works, and it can ruin the pacing of a good story if every moment you have is an exciting one. Get on a boat and have a few boring days during which nothing interesting happens. “You all board, the captain welcomes you, and you travel along the coast for a couple of days. There is a minor storm on the third, for which the captain steers the boat away from the coast – and rocks – and then sets back on course once it’s passed. You have arrived in the trading port of Alchazar, what do you do?” That’s fine. That’s everything you need it to be. Ask them what they’d like to do while they’re traveling if you like, but keep it simple. Two or three of these, and your players will stop expecting sea serpents and colossal tropical storms.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s when you give them both at once.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/puerta-vallarta-part-three.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-8960616117854184542Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:04:00 +00002013-01-14T15:04:57.095-08:00Puerto Vallarta, Part Two“I really like the ocean,” Z said as he did a spin-jump into an oncoming wave. It’s a sentiment I share. I didn’t see the ocean until I was a man grown, twenty-six and a youngling to the world of international travel.<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’d been Stateside a couple of times, but never to the coast, only the landlocked states of Montana and Indiana. Both were interesting in their own ways, but nothing had prepared me for the majesty and beauty of endless swells of water. It was awe-inspiring, and I immediately fell in love with the waves. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">We spent most of the day at the beach, alternating between getting the crap kicked out of us by seven foot waves and relaxing in sun chairs, warding off the merchants who insisted we should own their hats, buttons or earrings, get our hair braided, or some other such bit of ridiculous. I don’t do a lot of “rest” vacations; I’m one for adventure and zaniness, so just sitting on a beach while the others read might not seem like my cup of tea. It was, though. I ate tacos, I swam in the ocean, I napped lazily in a beach chair, and I thought. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I really like the ocean. I would live by it, given half the chance. I could see myself loving the life of a scuba instructor, for instance, or perhaps a sea taxi operator. Be on or near the ocean all the time, working and living in a beautiful coastal area. I would need to move to somewhere that isn’t Canada for that, though, and Mexico is not as kind to immigrants as it could be. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We went into the town of Puerto Vallarta. It’s a pitch-perfect rendition of a stereotypical Mexican city, to me. It’s green and beautiful, with ivy growing on the overpasses and palm trees dotting the landscape. It’s also clearly poor, with buildings that are falling apart and streets that are barely kept. Anything off the main strip is desolate and sad, with kids punting a stuck-together ball in the street and a small tavern serving as the local meeting spot. There was nothing for us, there, and it took far more wandering than we would have liked to find a decent spot to eat. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It turns out that in an incredibly Catholic nation, nothing is open on Sundays. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We did eventually find a little fast food place tucked in between a KFC and a strip joint, and sat down for a bite. They brought us salsa that seared my mouth with spices, radishes and lime, and a variety of sauces less immediately threatening than the salsa. They came with a small flatbread that was authentic tortilla chip, and we dug into them with the relish of people who have been looking for a place to eat for an hour. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I had the sausage and cheese tacos, which were delicious, and exactly what I was hoping for when I ordered tacos at the beach. Three soft tortilla shells held a line of minced meat veined with cheese, and a plate with roasted hot peppers, fried onion and bell peppers and refried beans. It was the best Mexican food I’ve ever had, and it was in a little dive on the main strip that I think most of the tourists were walking right past. N had a burrito that looked delicious, and Z had some chimichangas that were delightful to look at, and I can only imagine better to eat.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I also had a Coke with sugar in it for the first time in months, and it was incredible. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We ate a tasty desert of crème caramel, which they simply called “flan,” and and I had a cup of rice water, which is almost exactly like coconut milk if you take the coconut taste out of it. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">We stopped by a grocery store on our way home, and paid far less for our food there than we did the day before at the grocery store near the resort. I dare say the resort grocery store is trying to capitalize on our tourist naivety. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><h4>Game Stuff</h4><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When you’re thinking about the places your characters are, try and look at how they differentiate from the stereotype. One of the coolest things about Puerto Vallarta is that it is two different towns with very different styles. One is the clean, posh, incredibly rich tourist town, where people stay in mock-Aztec resort rooms and laze on beaches in the midday sun. The other is the busted down shanty town where people are doing their best to eke out a living that doesn’t totally suck. I like both towns, I really appreciate the great Mexican food at the place you’d pass right by if the nicer restaurants weren’t closed. I like seeing a bunch of kids riding third-hand bikes and playing like I remember kids doing in the ghettos I grew up in. I like seeing the Real Mexico, and I like lazing on a beach and occasionally punching the ocean in the waves. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Real Mexico isn’t any more or less real than Resort Mexico, it’s just much more MEXICO, which I think is neat. I think the same could probably be said of Edmonton, in a lot of ways; there’s the touristy Whyte Ave district with the nice shops and the beautiful old-style buildings, there’s the posh hotel down town with bus service directly to the beautiful university district, there’s the sprawling monstrosity of a mall that serves as Edmonton’s tourist hub, and then there’s long stretches of Jasper Ave. that look like they were designed by Soviet Russia in the 1950s. Everything is bare concrete and slummy bare patches of dirt in front of terrible apartments rented by poor, broken people. Which of those is more real? Which of those is more Canada? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe your town has an adventurer’s district, a few clean roads and gorgeous magic item shops that cater to that specific clientele. Maybe there are some really posh inns, resorts even, where for a few hundred gold, you get an apartment of your own, with maid service and access to a private beach. And maybe a few streets off of that, you see the real city, the parts of the city that the façade aims to hide. Not necessarily a bad place, just a poor place, or a place that has nothing for these strange roaming wizards and fighters. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And maybe your adventurous player characters will never see that part of town because they’re too busy seeing how the +7 maquahuitl cuts the heads off of dragons.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/puerto-vallarta-part-two.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-8489713022301553918Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:32:00 +00002013-01-14T15:03:29.204-08:00Puerto Vallarta, Part One<br /><div class="MsoNormal">Travel almost never happens when and how you want it to. Don’t get me wrong, travel has come a long, long way from the days of the stage coach, but to get anywhere today, you need to be willing to inconvenience yourself some. Our plane left at twenty past six in the morning, and required us to be in the airport, ready to do security check-ins and the like at four. Which meant being awake at three. Which meant going to bed pretty much immediately after getting home from work and hoping to get some solid sleep in before we had to get our butts out the door.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t really sleep on planes, or any moving vehicle. I’ve always had to wrestle with sleep to get it to do the things I want, and even then, sometimes it wins the fight. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The travel portion went more smoothly than I’m used to, though it took over fourteen hours to get where we were going and we were all pretty exhausted by the end of it. We took off from Edmonton Intl. at twenty past six and arrived in Phoenix, which is the worst airport in North America, about forty five minutes early.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Phoenix has never been my favorite in any of the occasions I’ve had the pleasure of laying over there. They’re gods-awful for gate changes, the waiting areas seem negligently short of seating and the place constantly feels as though it’s run by people who have never run an airport before. It makes the Edmonton International feel metropolitan by comparison. So spending an extra 45 minutes there was not nearly as pleasant as it could have been; we ate bad pizza, I tried to write this blog post, the others slept. We had to get our passport re-checked and our boarding passes stamped, which is a pleasure unique to Phoenix; I’ve never had to do it anywhere else, and it means getting in line twice. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The second half of the trip was by far the more difficult. Everyone was tired, and even I managed to doze for a few minutes. The landscape beneath us was unrelenting red mountains, there was nothing to watch or do (US Airways flights do not have entertainment centers; not even an in-flight movie). Still, traversing a continent is never easy work and is made simpler by flight in ways I cannot even imagine, so the fact that I’m typing this from a balcony above a beautiful marina with Mexican mountains in the distance the day after my departure is nothing short of a modern miracle. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Puerto Vallarta is gorgeous. From the moment the plane set down, I was immediately impressed. Jungle borders a clean, professional airport, and the well-maintained roads are a picture of Mexican beauty. I remarked to N that the key difference between Mexico and America is that, while both seem ready to fall apart at any moment, Mexico is somehow charming about it. Many of the buildings are ragged and unkempt, a few are just falling apart, but there is a sense of aesthetic about it in Mexico, almost as though it were intentional. Where America is strangely arrogant, boasting claims about being the greatest nation on earth, while sweeping under the carpet their crumbling buildings and broken streets, Mexico embraces that nothing lasts forever and humbly accepts the broken with the shiny and new. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And there are shining moments of incredible beauty in Mexico, sometimes in strange places. There are sudden arches or perfectly groomed gardens that pop out from the broken pieces and remind you that you’re on vacation here for a reason. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The first person we talked to tried to sell us time-share. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The first thing we did was take a nap.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">N and I don’t nap lightly. When we go down for a quick nap, that’s a three-to-five hour investment. For some folk, that’s a full-night’s sleep. But we hadn’t slept much before the plane, and we weren’t planning on wasting an adventure on our state of exhaustion. The bed was huge and comfortable and we found no trouble falling immediately into a great slumber, much to Z’s dismay, as he has an explorer’s spirit and wanted to hunt out experience and gold at first opportunity. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When we woke up, Z went to bed, and we spent the evening with a walk along the beach, playing in the waves like children do. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Game Stuff<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">No game stuff today. I’m on vacation. One of those relaxing ones where you spend a lot of time on the beach and get a sunburn. Maybe I'll make a note about travel being crazy and never happening on your schedule some day, but for right now, I'm relaxing.&nbsp;</div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2013/01/travel-almost-never-happens-when-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-2292494227060588808Sat, 01 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +00002012-09-01T09:27:51.808-07:00Dickbags in the Game StoreSo, my friend C works in a high-profile video game retailer. She is a girl, and that comes with some interesting side effects. Most of the guys pretty decent dudes, but once in a while you get a dickbag. And that sucks, because it's your fucking job and you can't go anywhere. In my own personal life, I have a rule about my girlfriends' other lovers: I don't want to meet them at the store because I can't run away. <br /><br />So C met a dickbag, and he started following her on Twitter.*&nbsp; An onslaught of posts that assumed a relationship with her far more intimate than one she has with him were what followed, and she felt that this was generally uncalled for. And then she made the mistake of saying something to him. Shit has gone downhill from there, and while I would love to document the whole thing, I wasn't really there for it.<br /><br />The gist of it: He did not stop communicating with her. Even when her boyfriend relayed that it would be very good for him to stop that. Even when she blocked him. Even when her friends started getting into it with him. This is my reply to him attempting to defend himself to me. <br /><br />I don't like him very much.<br /><br />There are a few points you made that I would like to quickly address. <br /><br /><strong>What you did was uncalled for</strong>. It was deeply creepy and a huge overreaction to a person you did not know. It clearly made her feel uncomfortable and it has had a direct and upsetting effect on her. Once that was brought to your attention, you attacked the messenger with baseless accusations of jealousy; he wasn't jealous, he was protecting someone he cares about from a person that represents a clear danger to her well-being. By continuing this conversation and harrassing her friends, you are being a dickbag. This is indefensible. This is deplorable. This makes you a horrible person and you should stop. <br /><br /><strong>You can't help people understand a point of view that is clearly wrong and misinformed</strong>. What you are trying to do is feel better about a course of interactions that has left someone feel victimized and horrible. That is not what you should be doing. You should be apologizing, and then shutting up. You were a dickbag. That happens sometimes, and we all have to deal with our various occasions of dickbaggery. But the mature thing to do in those situations is not to continue harrassing people; it's to admit it and shut the fuck up. <br /><br /><strong>You are trying to drag her work into your abuse</strong>, and that is unconscionable. Any workplace worth working at will take one look at your behavior and then ban you from the premises. If you acted like this to any of my employees, you would be immediately asked to leave, and never, ever come back. Because I will not let my employees feel that work is an unsafe place for them to be. I will not let my employees work in conditions that are bad for their psychological well-being. The fault is not with her. The fault is with you, and if anyone is going to be facing repercussions for it, it will be you. <br /><br /><br />*EDIT! Apparently she followed him first.http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-my-friend-c-works-in-high-profile.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-9103237406575009239Fri, 24 Aug 2012 21:52:00 +00002012-08-24T14:52:50.811-07:00Bad Days Make for Bad Blog Posts<p>I was supposed to write up an awesome blog post about how cool the last day of GenCon was, and I usually wrap up the whole series with a note that talks about my trip in general. I have not written those things yet. I might not. I’ve got a nasty case of Con Crud, and the last week has been pretty brutal for other reasons. I haven’t been in a great place for writing. </p> <p>So instead, have a picture of my school scarf. I found it while rummaging around in my closet. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FjPfMEv5gkE/UDf3rV3EbAI/AAAAAAAABVc/lQhIzev1HVI/s1600-h/IMG_0165%25255B1%25255D%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0165[1]" border="0" alt="IMG_0165[1]" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-7HdqxMe4QoA/UDf3sU4qZjI/AAAAAAAABVk/uou_xACqAC0/IMG_0165%25255B1%25255D_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="551" height="738"></a></p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/bad-days-make-for-bad-blog-posts.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-2406989417652230983Sun, 19 Aug 2012 06:47:00 +00002012-08-18T23:47:05.297-07:00GenCon Journal 2012: Day Three<p>We started today with the infamous Tracy Hickman’s Killer Breakfast. Now, I’ve never been to the Killer Breakfast proper; I’d been to the inaugural run of the Second Breakfast (which actually happens before the Killer Breakfast), but I’d never been to the actual event before. So I was ready for some awesome treat time with it, but it was actually less entertaining than last year. Tracy seemed really tired and less into it than previously, Laura took a much stronger back seat to their daughter (and I actually like Laura quite a bit, so that was a bummer), and the creativity and energy seemed way down.</p> <p>Then we hit a seminar called Pink Dice and Pony Dungeons that was supposed to be largely about how to design games for women. The secret, of course, is don’t design games with women, but instead design games that are inclusive of women, and design games that are targeted at an audience that includes women, but not specifically for women as a demographic. Except, that isn’t really what we talked about; the seminar quickly devolved into another discussion of table politics, and as much as I enjoyed the previous talks about table politics, I was looking for something a little meatier on the design side. I’m a System Matters kind of fellow, I make a lot of noise about how system should and can influence and change the social contracts that come into play when we hit the tables. </p> <p>When that was finished, we did some more Exhibition Hall, but this time I had a plan. We found the Indie Press Revolution booth and bought every book they had that I don’t. That, for the record, always feels really, really good. Then we went and took a big nap. Then, N got a pair of boots she’s been obsessing over for over a year. Which I think is something that is very cool about GenCon; you can see a thing one year and then obsess over that thing for a <em>whole year </em>and then you can come back and buy those things. </p> <p>We went to the playtesting hall again and played a cool game built with wooden pieces and <em>leather </em>board tiles, and the game itself was actually a lot of fun. It was something of a mixture of monopoly and RISK, bringing in some of the best elements of each and leaving the boring shit out. There was a distinct lack of a catch-up mechanic if things went against you, and the way the cards were built meant that some players were catching cards that were more relevant than others, but the overall theme of the game was pretty sweet and most of the mechanics were really elegant and smooth. </p> <p>N then went to a Cards Against Humanity tournament and got a trophy. Like so.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-tk-WL09xntQ/UDCL2u_3p8I/AAAAAAAABU4/jZypYcDqhis/s1600-h/IMG_0154%25255B1%25255D%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0154[1]" border="0" alt="IMG_0154[1]" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-T2U2oRwQiQY/UDCL51Rc-AI/AAAAAAAABVA/iq3owzbHyHI/IMG_0154%25255B1%25255D_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="547"></a></p> <p>I did not win any trophies. Instead, I went to play Fiasco at the Games on Demand room, and was not at all disappointed in that choice. Fiasco is a very different role-playing game from most that I’ve played in that it focuses on two-player interactions and builds stories from a mixture of relationships and conflicting goals. I’m pretty sure I was the only person at the table who really understood what was going on and how the game is supposed to be played. But I get that feeling a lot… </p> <p>Then we went to the restaurant in the JW Marriot where we got to hang out a bit with A and C, I met a Conservative Christian American business owner who I got along with famously (he bought me tequila, the fine bastard), and we had a great dinner and great conversation for the rest of the night. </p> <p>Tomorrow is the last day of the convention, and the last day we’ll be in the United States. I would be willing to say that this go at GenCon has been my favourite. I’ve played more games, met more cool people, seen more cool stuff than I have at any of the conventions beforehand, and I would be more than happy to go again. When we were on our way here this year, I was a little on the fence about whether or not I’d want to make the trip out for a fourth go as soon as next year. There are other places I want to visit; I want to get to Asia one of these years. I have dreams of seeing Australia and New Zealand. I want to visit Africa. So do I really want to invest in yet another GenCon in such quick succession? </p> <p>Yes. Yes I do.</p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/gencon-journal-2012-day-three.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-5460384474195734200Sat, 18 Aug 2012 04:56:00 +00002012-08-17T21:56:27.092-07:00GenCon Journal 2012: Day Two<p>N and I got off to a later start than normal, which is great because we needed the extra sleep. Conventions wear you out, whether it’s from the constant walking around or the incredible press of people, and most folk simply don’t get enough rest to have a productive day at the Con. </p> <p>We started off the day with bagels and muffins. Turns out, if you’re a retailer and you paid for a Trade Day badge, you get free bagels and muffins, and there is nothing in the world more beautiful than a free breakfast. Most of our seminars and things were in the Indiana Convention Center today, so moving between them was really easy, which also made the day go by in a weirdly lopsided way. Our morning was super-busy with seminars and Exhibition Hall stuff, our evening wasn’t filled with much at all, and we ended up sitting in the Westin chatting with anime fans about gun control and mail armour. </p> <p>The first seminar we hit was about realism in medieval and classical combat scenarios. The panellists were well informed, experienced fighters in a variety of styles (one medieval recreationist, one MMA fighter who had actually been in a couple of knife fights, and one fencer), and they broke down how fighting in fantasy literature and games is very different from fighting in real life. Real life fighting is fast, brutal, and really hard work. Fighting in fiction is a lot more convoluted and strange. </p> <p>The second seminar was on how to get women into gaming. There wasn’t anything in this seminar that was new to me, really. I’ve had women in my games for years, and a number of my favourite groups have been composed of a higher percentage of women than men, so I like to think that I have a firmish grasp on the concept of gaming with ladies. There were a few anecdotes about pastry chefs and gaming with boyfriends that I hadn’t heard before, and there were some interesting questions from the audience, but if you have ever gamed with a woman at your table, you probably know everything that the seminar would have taught you. Still, it was a fun sit-through, and the hosts were awesome. </p> <p>Our trip through the exhibition hall was awesome, if much shorter than our usual span there. We focused on trying to narrow in on purchases and had some luck with that. I picked up some dice for the store from the amazing Game Science, and Natalie grabbed a sweet sword belt that she will be using as her normal belt. I’ll be heading back in tomorrow with an agenda. That agenda will be “Buy all of the stuff!” </p> <p><img style="display: inline; float: left" align="left" src="http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/14767231.jpg"></p> <p>We finally made it to the Playtest Arena, which was awesome. We played a deckbuilding game about superheroes that was neat in concept, but lacked a level of interactive play that I think is integral in game design. Sadly, that game was pretty well locked into its current form (which begs the question: why ‘playtest’ it when nothing the players suggest will change the final outcome of the game? There seem like better places to market things). The second playtest I took part in was a zombies-in-high-school game that was actually a lot of fun, despite a number of interesting design flaws. The guys rocking that playtest were really interested in feedback, and they had some really nice things to say about my ideas. I also fixed a tricky wording issue that they seemed particularly thrilled about, so now I’m all proud of me. </p> <p>The last seminar of the day for us was a Zombie Survival seminar, which was neat in concept but I feel failed in execution. As an introduction to broad concepts of zombie survival, it was interesting. As a practical guide to surviving the zombie apocalypse, it failed rather miserably, as much of the advice given was unspecific to the point of uselessness. While the presenter certainly talked about things like hording water and food, and while he made mention of fortification vs escaping the city, the information given wasn’t nearly down to earth enough to be of any use to a person not already trained in survival. In fact, the best advice given in the whole seminar was “Go out and learn some survival skills.” </p> <p>Also, this happened.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-bfod8nKD0GM/UC8gcZmz9_I/AAAAAAAABUQ/GKpVcaQTLTk/s1600-h/IMG_0149%25255B1%25255D%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0149[1]" border="0" alt="IMG_0149[1]" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-K3X8vXhy60g/UC8gdwZR_mI/AAAAAAAABUY/4Wxvp_cT1HI/IMG_0149%25255B1%25255D_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="491" height="660"></a></p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/gencon-journal-2012-day-two.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-1403678741296154153Fri, 17 Aug 2012 04:59:00 +00002012-08-16T22:03:44.688-07:00GenCon Journal 2012: Day One<p>Oh man, what a busy day… We woke up at seven in the morning, on time and without delays this time. We caught our bus downtown, rocked Starbucks for breakfast, met up with A and C while we were in line, and hustled to our first seminar: The Cadaver Synod. </p> <p>Basically, in the 9th Century, there was a pope. He wasn’t particularly great or horrible, beyond being a pope in a rough political time. His successor died after only two weeks in office, and the guy that replaced HIM dug up the first pope’s body, put him on trial posthumously, excommunicated him, and had him sentenced to… execution.</p> <p>Some time later, one of that pope’s successors held the trial again and exonerated the first. It was a shit storm.</p> <p>The guy running this one was from the group that holds in-character debates about stuff like the Cuban Missile Crisis. While I’m sure that group of people was awesome, this guy was a bit of a dickbag. He made fun of us for choosing his lecture over doing anything else in that time slot, and complained constantly that his projector was turning his slides purple, which was an issue to him and him alone. While interesting and informative, he was not my favourite person.</p> <p>Luckily my next seminar was back-to-back with his and I had to eject a little early to get to it. This one was about ballroom dancing and its evolution, from the strict and chaste dances of the Middle Ages to how saucy the tango was, to the deaths of a whole bunch of music instructors during World War One and how that influenced the rise of swing dancing and jazz. It was really interesting stuff, and the guy running the seminar was fun, funny, and the nerdliest nerd of nerdtown, which I found incredibly endearing. </p> <p>After the dance seminar, I didn’t have much to do for a bit. I tried to hit up the entirely kick-ass Games on Demand room, where you can just sit around and play awesome indie games for a couple of hours, but that required generic tickets which I had yet to acquire. Rather than stand in line for an hour trying to get those tickets, I walked downstairs to the Exhibition Hall. This is what I found there. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-wTVIDBzsW_g/UC3PoXkaEKI/AAAAAAAABSc/t5AErNjNc0I/s1600-h/IMG_0130%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0130" border="0" alt="IMG_0130" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-xXy2EJSdtoo/UC3Ppo0SV1I/AAAAAAAABSk/vH0f1vDFgmY/IMG_0130_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="285" height="382"></a></p> <p>That is but a small sampling of the crowd there, and it is fucking crazy. Moreover, I found these things: </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-WAcjlx4rfaI/UC3PqP-qzqI/AAAAAAAABSs/9LphadLY6sw/s1600-h/IMG_0142%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0142" border="0" alt="IMG_0142" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-OOuDCHh65Sc/UC3Prav-FkI/AAAAAAAABS0/STiBjj8ozH4/IMG_0142_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-H2pngecfdAU/UC3PtNI1ZwI/AAAAAAAABS8/avQul3jYp3g/s1600-h/IMG_0137%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0137" border="0" alt="IMG_0137" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-wWK5KR-HieY/UC3Pt6lMlUI/AAAAAAAABTE/RaMQgCzV6zw/IMG_0137_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ul7W8STiTXw/UC3PuXsRVnI/AAAAAAAABTM/JFpaToV_ix4/s1600-h/IMG_0134%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0134" border="0" alt="IMG_0134" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-TzawvFcW22U/UC3PumhQ_6I/AAAAAAAABTQ/lnRKemYEW6g/IMG_0134_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-s18Xh9n6jSk/UC3PvU955ZI/AAAAAAAABTU/qa-KgBfnKbQ/s1600-h/IMG_0143%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0143" border="0" alt="IMG_0143" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-t5_zcmOg2kA/UC3PwGG7LCI/AAAAAAAABTY/2MnkeXFSMl4/IMG_0143_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a></p> <p>Oh, and I totally met GeekyLyndsay in person. Woo!</p> <p>After puttering around the Exhibition for a while, I made my way to the Retailer Lounge for the first time ever, and I’m super-glad I did. Free muffins? Check. Free coffee? Check. Freedom from the ridiculous press of people? Win!</p> <p>I spent some time talking to a distributor there before making my way slowly to a panel on the subject of getting women into gaming and making sure there’s a comfortable place for then when they arrive. It was a great discussion and the three panellists (including the lovely Susan Morris, for whom I am developing something of a nerd crush) did an awesome job directing the flow. I was really intrigued by a few of the ideas brought up by the audience, though I think that a few of the gents in the audience were perhaps a touch more vocal than I would have liked. Believe me, I had questions, I had things I wanted to say, but when I’m in a room with a bunch of women who are telling you what they want from the gaming community, I try to focus on listening. </p> <p>Also, I got to chat more with Sarah Darkmagic and her lovely man-friend, and they are both awesome. </p> <p>After that panel, N and I spent some time touring around the Exhibition Hall again, looking at some costume pieces for her. I really appreciated having her there with me, because the Hall is great, and I love looking at all the cool-nerdy-weird stuff that people have for sale, but it’s a lot more fun when you have someone to share the experience with. And watching her happily shopping is infectious; it’s hard to be grumpy when she’s talking about how awesome her costume-for-nothing-in-particular is going to be.</p> <p>I had a long chat with Richard from Wizards of the Coast about their brand and how weird it’s been lately. He’s a good dude, and I’d like to keep in touch with him, I think. I also finally met Tyson, my contact at Wizards of the coast, and I made sure to hug him in the creepiest way I legally could. </p> <p>After N had to get to her next seminar, she passed me a few Generic Tickets so I rocked a quick game of Dungeon World in the Games on Demand room. The Game Master wasn’t strictly prepared, and I was easily the highest-energy person at the table (and also the only person capable of projecting his or her voice across the full length of the table), but I had fun anyway and died peppered with arrows before heading off to my last seminar of the night, a discussion on travel food in medieval Europe. </p> <p>The guy doing the last talk had a lot of information, and I learned a TON about medieval food in general. Turns out, the whole Adventure Stew trope is actually totally a thing, and people would often travel with beans, salted meat, and grains, and together they would make a tasty soup. Though, to be fair, you wouldn’t need food on the road often, as there would be a town roughly a day away on any given road. Cool things to know for the future.</p> <p>After that seminar, we ate, and headed to Hall C for a couple of rounds of “Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow.” N got into two games, I got into one, and I was the first person killed in that game. Still, I had fun, and it’s always entertaining to watch people flail around trying to figure out who is killing them in their sleep.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-HjbbC9753Ek/UC3PwjPGwWI/AAAAAAAABTc/NnLzAhG68Lg/s1600-h/IMG_0146%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMG_0146" border="0" alt="IMG_0146" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-6c6J8ujH9RA/UC3PxJme7MI/AAAAAAAABTk/HNiD4eqyPKo/IMG_0146_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="464" height="349"></a></p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/gencon-journal-2012-day-one.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-29341587279132204Thu, 16 Aug 2012 04:25:00 +00002012-08-15T21:25:56.816-07:00Gen Con Journal 2012: Trade Day<p>So, we got into Indianapolis last night fairly late and I didn’t have a chance to blog about anything. It was already late when we got in, the cab ride to our residence was far longer than it needed to be, and there were some interesting issues with our lodging. We’d also just flown for some six hours, and were pretty exhausted.</p> <p>So let’s talk a little bit about yesterday, and then I’ll get into Trade Day stuff.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Z0qlpxrBfqM/UCx2RqUgMCI/AAAAAAAABRY/SURi8C-6eEo/s1600-h/IMG_0128%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Who's got two thumbs and a milkshake? A does." border="0" alt="Saw this guy at the con" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-bDJwC-EnFZU/UCx2SUm0CSI/AAAAAAAABRg/AtobuDuREBE/IMG_0128%25255B1%25255D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a>We got up pretty early in the morning. I was actually up earlier than N because I’m a lot easier to wake up than she is, and I was super excited to get to Indianapolis and the meat of the vacation. I got up, packed up all of our stuff, and was ready to go even before the first wake-up call came in. N took a little extra time getting up, which was fine, and we managed to grab some breakfast at McDonalds before we got going. At the airport, she started feeling a little sick, and the US Airways process proved to be entirely too much bullshit for her in that state. It’s ridiculous. You have to sign into the little automatic kiosk thing, then you have to go and check your bags with the baggage check-in people, who are also the agents who can check you in if something goes wrong with the kiosk. The line-up was insane, filled with people who didn’t get their stuff processed properly, and everyone (I mean EVERYONE) was confused and upset by the whole thing. Why not just let the agents deal with your shit? Because technology. I guess. </p> <p>Anyway, after a good half hour of fuckery, we got our stuff, and then got rushed through the security line. Twice! We got randomly selected for hand-wipe-bomb-duty, and the nice lady doing that let us cut in line to the fastest security station. Then the guy in front of N killed the Radiation Machine of Death that everyone’s so upset about and we got to go through a normal metal detector. And they didn’t even touch my junk! A winrar is me!<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-PdxHXBGhyMc/UCx2TPLmjRI/AAAAAAAABRo/OzVIn6cDV7o/s1600-h/IMG_0126%25255B1%25255D%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="GRUMPAH FACE!" border="0" alt="N doesn't dig the Spouse Activities" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ei9mCXvUVgs/UCx2T0iUlZI/AAAAAAAABRw/qgAUOdXrdU0/IMG_0126%25255B1%25255D_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="183"></a></p> <p>Then I won some money at a slot machine. The lady beside me hid her jealousy not at all.</p> <p>Charlotte airport is not nearly as horrible as Phoenix, and the land around the city was simply gorgeous. It reminded me of what Edmonton would be like if Edmonton sucked less at city planning. All the buildings lined up really nicely. </p> <p>We ate some burgers, got our gate changed on us again, and got on the plane to Indianapolis. Like all of the flights on US Airways, this one sucked, but it sucked less by only being two hours.</p> <p>There was no Big Awesome Dragon in the lobby this time around, which was disappointing. Because we’d decided to stay with some locals instead of at a hotel, we couldn’t take a shuttle-bus to get where we were going; we hired a cab, who then quickly screwed us out of $25 while taking us roughly the distance I walk to get to my job. The place was a bit run down, but there was a multitude of cats, which made me more inclined to like it. </p> <p>We paid our rent. We got shit sorted, which took forever because the lady I’d made the arrangements with had forgotten we were coming a day early, and we got to our accommodations for the week. They were crap. It’s an attic. It’s barely a proper attic, even; it’s roughly a third of the attic, with a busted window and a ceiling so sloped you can’t properly stand upright. It’s not the worst place I have ever stayed, but it’s certainly not my favourite. Still, we showered, brushed our teeth, and quickly fell asleep. </p> <p>This morning, we got up a little later than planned. We had hoped to be out by seven to get an early start on the day and get our badges and such figured out. That didn’t happen, because the new alarm-clock app I put on my ipad didn’t go off. So we got up fifteen minutes late, caught a bus to the Convention Center, and halfway there I forgot my ID back at the house. N tried to pick up my badge without me, but couldn’t, so I had to go all the way back to the house, all the way back to the Con, and by then the seminars I’d wanted to see early in the day were over. We went shopping instead. </p> <p>N bought a hot new pair of jeans. I bought a $50 data package that won’t work in the device I brought because of our Advanced Canadian Technology. We are too Advanced. Which sometimes sucks. </p> <p>We got back to the Convention and sat in on a seminar about getting games into schools by the<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-DA5YbDiOUdY/UCx2UjE8KAI/AAAAAAAABR4/ioLMXBGAIwM/s1600-h/IMG_0123%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="With Camera!" border="0" alt="I took a picture!" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-xauScLUKKN0/UCx2U7SidLI/AAAAAAAABSA/hRUSbXZP2tY/IMG_0123%25255B1%25255D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a> lovely Susan Morris (a person I believe should write more games), and another about how to use games to encourage literacy. The former was brilliant, the latter a little more scattershot and strangely paced. Don’t get me wrong, I learned things, but the lacking presentation made me much more aware of it than it should have. </p> <p>We met up with A and C, who are both awesome, and went out to eat some food at the nearby Steak &amp; Shake. We headed back to their hotel for some scintillating and sinful… CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY, which N won by an incredibly narrow margin (namely, haiku). The game was a lot of fun, the company was awesome, and I finally got to meet Sarah Darkmagic and DavetheGame face-to-face. Apparently GeekyLyndsay will be in tomorrow after some interesting complications with her flights, so I didn’t get a chance to meet her yet, but it’s a long convention and I still have hopes. </p> <p>Buses in Indianapolis, for the record, suck balls. </p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/gen-con-journal-2012-trade-day.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-6505683060331249065Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:14:00 +00002012-08-13T22:14:04.352-07:00The Tournament of Kings<p> If you’ve never read any Arthurian Legend, and if you’ve got an appreciation for World Wrestling Entertainment, the Tournament of Kings would be pretty great. Having read quite a few books on Arthur and his court, and not really digging on WWE, it was <em>awesome</em>. </p> <p>N and I were prepared to have a nice night in. We’d decided against the Tournament mostly because we were running a little short on cash prior to her getting paid – and there seems to be a hiccup in that direction – and because the guy at the desk told us it would have been $150. My boss, the incredible Dave Bryenton, insisted we go, using money he’d given us for purchases for the store if need be. Turns out, we didn’t really need it, because the guy at the box office desk was a total sweetness and gave us the Staying at the Excalibur Discount because we seemed sweet. He even tried to get us some seats together through the Talk to My Boss pointer. While we weren’t able to sit next to one another, he was still awesome. </p> <p>So Dave, Kevin, you guys rock. Horses, you suck, and you are not allowed to eat my flesh. </p> <p>So we sit down, me on the stairs, N at her seat, me on the stairs beside her until the food gets delivered. I was seated next to two lovely ladies, one of whom was on her <em>fourth</em> go at the Tournament, and one who was there for the first time. Both were pretty great, and we chatted for a bit while we waited for the tournament to start. I let them know about my phobia, and they were even sweet enough to check in on me when the action started. </p> <p>Merlin came out and made some announcements, introduced Arthur, and then introduced us to some crowd participation stuff. Then our “kings” came out. Ours was Ireland, as we were seated in the green section of the stands. One of the more entertaining aspects of the Tournament was that England was not represented anywhere. N and I chalked this up to American independence issues. It’s interesting to note that the Tsar of Russia was also a douchebag. A hold-over from the Cold War? Maybe. I dunno. Regardless, Ireland was a hot Maori dude, and easily the most personable of the fellows. We cheered as loud as we could while he was competing, and he returned the favour by being awesome and interacting with us freely and charismatically. He kind of reminded me of one of the store’s Magic guys. N didn’t see it. </p> <p>The first bit was a song and dance bit during which some Gypsy Whores came out and danced seductively for the kings, and it was ridiculous and racially insensitive and weirdly fun. The the evil Dragon King (Mordred) came out and made some threats, and then we started the tournament itself. There was a race, there was a bashing of heads on sticks, and a joust. Out of all of them, the jousting itself was the most interesting to me; it was <em>so fast. </em>Faster than I have ever thought it would be. They filed up on the ranks, and then BLAM! Crazy action! Shit exploding! People falling off of horses (shudder)! Sword fights! </p> <p>The sword fights were easily the most WWE part of the whole thing. Clearly choreographed and performed by people who know every move. It’s quick-paced and practiced and professional. It’s also clearly fake, and that’s part of the charm. Much like the action in WWE, the awesome isn’t the fight itself, the awesome is in the athleticism and the scale of the things they’re doing. Every move may be already planned and practiced, but those moves aren’t easy to do, and to perform them is clearly difficult and requires years of training. These guys are incredible stunt people, and they do some amazing work. </p> <p>The mythology on show is utterly ridiculous. Did you know that King Arthur had a son named Christopher? I sure didn’t. And Mordred apparently has a bunch of dragons or something. And those dragons are dudes in ridiculous rubber suits. Also, Arthur apparently had dominion over France and Hungary and Ireland and Russia… And Britain only as long as it isn’t called Britain. They called it Albion, which is cute. </p> <p>The food was also pretty decent. A small roast chicken, some potatoes, and a McDonalds apple pie. Woot! </p> <h2>Game Stuff</h2> <p>I don’t have any game stuff for this entry yet. Give me a day or two and I’ll come up with something. </p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-tournament-of-kings.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-7544357809718176874Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:00:00 +00002012-08-13T15:32:29.449-07:00Travel Days: Las Vegas<p>I love busted shit. I’m not sure why exactly, but I find some joy in things that aren’t exactly what you would expect. Versailles has squeaky floors. The Mona Lisa is tiny and ridiculous. My plane’s wing was obviously experiencing some technical difficulties. </p> <p>That isn’t to say I ever felt unsafe; I love flying and I trust that they would not let the plane fly with a flap that they knew wasn’t working. And I can’t be the only person to have flown in that plane and seen that the flap was clearly blowing in the wind. It’s just not something I think about often. How busted can my plane be before I need to worry about it? When I think about airplanes, I almost always think about the jets in an idealized, pristine form. I’ve never worked with planes as an occupation, I don’t get to see their guts or deal with them in anything approaching a real way, so when I get into one, I just assume that everything is top-notch. </p> <p>My plane was not top-notch this time around, and that’s sort of interesting for me to see. Like<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-1MUivOcw8ho/UClq_4jDoLI/AAAAAAAABP4/-fjTxB9hmX8/s1600-h/IMG_0109%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="My &quot;Let's Do This&quot; Face" border="0" alt="Let's DO This!" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-S3Oy-2A9sXg/UClrAeh8wPI/AAAAAAAABQA/xUtnQIZWtgM/IMG_0109%25255B1%25255D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></a> checking out the inner workings of a cruise ship, or staying in a hotel room that is set to be refurbished soon, it’s a cool look at the inner workings of the travel world. I’m usually so detached from that industry – even when I worked in the travel industry, it was at a remove from the nitty gritty bits – that to see something very clearly real on the trip is a strange sort of exciting for me. </p> <p>The Phoenix Airport is shit, by the bye. I’ve been to a remarkable number of airports in the past five years, and Phoenix is the second worst of the bunch so far. Understand that the worst airport I’ve been to was worse by an incredible margin (do not go into the washroom in a Cuban airport, guys; it left me shaken), but the experience I had there was pretty stupid. </p> <p>Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but when the airport is starting to fill up with people, I put my bags in front of me, or under my seat, or both if I’m travelling heavy. Often, I’ll put them there anyway, because I don’t feel like my bags deserve a seat of their own. They’re bags. People need those seats. </p> <p>Phoenix Airport’s patrons included Gucci and Oakley bags. One lady had bags taking up two adjacent seats. N and I had to sit on the floor, which was more comfortable for me than it was for her. She gave me a nice massage, which was awesome because I was functioning on an hour or two of napping and trying to sleep on the plane. I can’t sleep in moving vehicles. It’s a curse. Still, we shouldn’t have had to sit on the floor. There were dozens of seats available, if people would just put their fucking bags on the floor. We weren’t the only people on the floor, either. And people got mad at us for taking up too much space. </p> <p>I take up a lot less space when I sit in a chair. Just sayin’. </p> <p>Getting into Vegas proper was a lot like coming home. I’ve been here three times in the past five years, and it hardly feels like a vacation spot anymore. It’s more like going to my parents’ house, if my parents’ house was filled with gambling and strippers. We got in and had a<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_GKjp7fymnw/UCmAeX6Xo6I/AAAAAAAABQs/W9jFQz3vJQc/s1600-h/IMG_0113%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="N's plan for the whole Vegas part of the trip" border="0" alt="N! Being adorable!" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-wosAjwL4AK4/UCmAe-tDMBI/AAAAAAAABQ0/0kBNw40YbXU/IMG_0113%25255B1%25255D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244"></a> horrible/awesome buffet before heading up to our rooms and sleeping until the middle of the day. I played some poker and lost. N and I drank some vodka and watched Shark Week and the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Today, we were going to go see the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur, where we’re staying, but they want $75 per person to see it, and food, getting to the hotel, and one night of gambling has completely sapped our Las Vegas budget. Instead, we’re going to do nothing.</p> <p>The convention itself is going to be a gong-show, and I fully expect to stress out while I’m there. I do every time I go, even though I’m having an incredible time. Having some time to wind down and chill out for a couple of days before hand is going to be necessary, I think. </p> <p>I’m really looking forward to Wednesday.</p> <h2>Game Stuff!</h2> <p>On Imperfection in the World</p> <p>We have a tendency to make things perfect in our fantasy, which makes sense because by its nature, fantasy is a glorification. It’s a way to make things brilliant and over-the-top and ridiculous, but still inherently believable and true. Perfection is something we’ve come to expect in our fantasy worlds; palaces are immaculate, swords are without flaw and glint in the sunlight, and when something is poor and dirty, it’s poor and dirty in just the right way. </p> <p>The floors at the Palace at Versailles squeak. Take a <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-2O-V-mToDnc/UClrByHt9-I/AAAAAAAABQI/HySvJnrOuHM/s1600-h/IMG_0111%25255B1%25255D%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="The View" border="0" alt="This is what we see out the window!" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_lvRSUKz6Is/UClrCEQomcI/AAAAAAAABQQ/l3l4Qt2ev8E/IMG_0111%25255B1%25255D_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="213" height="285"></a>moment to think about that. In the world’s most incredible symbol of opulence and privilege, the floors squeak. Almost nothing in the world is perfect, and that makes perfection all the more remarkable when it’s found. The mark of the greatest artist is the ability to free-hand a perfect circle, if you believe the myths. A perfectly balanced weapon carries the same weight of legend that a magical sword might. </p> <p>Work imperfection into your world. The floors squeak, the rafters are dusty, the lacquer on the tables peels, the glasses have water spots and the chairs are comfortable but shift a little uneasily when you sit in them. The dungeon walls are made of hewn stone, cut well but with years of wear; the magical sword you’ve picked up has two notches in the blade from use, and the hilt has been covered by worn leather because the original is too smooth for proper use. The dwarf-king’s throne bears a mark of chiselled graffiti three hundred years old, carved during the last succession war. The floorboards are uneven; no secret compartments or anything, the floor is just fucking uneven because it’s old. </p> <p>This makes the world more inherently believable, because our own world is riddled with imperfection. And if you make perfection rare, you can give it impact that it might not otherwise have. A masterwork tool is a thing to behold, in a world where perfection is a rarity.</p> <p>Have a chart! </p> <table style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; line-height: normal; border-collapse: collapse; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; mso-border-top-alt: solid #c0504d 1.0pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: accent2; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #c0504d 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent2; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt" class="MsoTableLightShadingAccent2" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tbody> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: -1; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes"> <td style="border-bottom: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-border-top-themecolor: accent2; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent2" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 5" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">Imperfection Chart for Indoor Places!</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-border-top-themecolor: accent2; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent2" valign="top" width="450">&nbsp;</td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">1-5</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The floor is uneven</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">6-10</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The door squeaks</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">11-15</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The door closes faster than expected (slam!)</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">16-20</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The corners of the walls don’t match up quite right, resulting in a gap</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">21-25</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The floors and the walls don’t match up quite right, resulting in a gap</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">26-30</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The ceiling and the walls don’t match up quite right, resulting in a gap</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">31-35</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">A piece of the furniture has uneven legs</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">36-40</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">A piece of the furniture’s varnish is peeling</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">41-45</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">A piece of the furniture’s varnish is cracked</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 9"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">46-50</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">A piece of the furniture has a sizable chip in it. </font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 10"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">51-55</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The wall has a large dent in it.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 11"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">56-60</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The floor has a large gouge in it.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 12"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">61-65</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The floor has old scrapes and scratches in it, from furniture being moved.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 13"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">66-70</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The ceiling has a large discolored spot from a persistent leak. If it’s raining outside, it’s leaking.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 14"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">71-75</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The ceiling is a little bowed.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 15"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">76-80</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">There is a spot on the wall that’s a different color where a painting was recently hanging.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 16"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">81-85</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The rug is fraying in a corner.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 17"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">86-90</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">The furniture is recently broken and there is blood on the floor. There was a fight here recently.</font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 18"> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 68" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">91-95</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; background: #efd3d2; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-background-themecolor: accent2; mso-background-themetint: 63" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#000000">The furniture is recently broken and there’s a pile of bones in the center of a charred spot on the floor. </font></span></p></td></tr> <tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 19; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"> <td style="border-bottom: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent2" valign="top" width="166"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-yfti-cnfc: 4" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">96-00</font></span></b></p></td> <td style="border-bottom: #c0504d 1pt solid; border-left: medium none; padding-bottom: 0cm; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent2" valign="top" width="450"> <p style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: ; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-ansi-language: en-us" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 11pt" color="#ffffff">Everything is a little too clean, like someone is trying to hide something. </font></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/08/travel-days.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-5205067452982336393Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:06:00 +00002012-07-17T15:06:22.416-07:00A Wee PoemSomeone left behind their game notes, and I slipped this into their binder.<br /><br />A billiant day and sithine goves<br />sumbled oér sumps and meather<br />Sithered into surious hoves<br />slimbering together<br /><br />Beware the frumious hitersitch<br />teeth that clather, jaws that smach<br />A skit a scather a bumblehitch<br />many a warrior's match<br /><br />He took his allful spear to hand<br />a fortnight sought his umbred foe<br />Once rested on the seaside sand<br />and dreamt of vengeance owed<br /><br />A huffle heard through hinderbrush<br />a snip of twig a silent twirt<br />The danderbolt came trumbling crush<br />to snick the boy's chain shirt<br /><br />A day and night, a night and day<br />the allful spear went shick and bloom<br />The creature died, the singers say<br />while whispering our doom<br /><br />Our hero slewt the danderbolt<br />but bought us only endless night<br />The doom the creature spuck at death<br />will soon be brought to light<br /><br />A billiand day and sithine goves<br />sumble oér sumps and meather<br />Sither into surious hoves<br />And pray...http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/07/wee-poem.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-920984655234951939Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:05:00 +00002012-07-17T01:05:23.960-07:00designdnddramatic editingdungeons and dragonsGame Designplottingrandomrandom designrole-playingrole-playing gamerpgrulesskill challengeskillsstorytellingsystemthinking too muchthird editionPlot Blocks<p><a href="http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/plot-stat-block-for-the-organized-game-master/" target="_blank">This</a> was written two years ago, and it wasn’t the thing I was hoping it would be.</p> <p>So I wrote <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByDokciRuG6UQTZGQS1JelcyZzQ" target="_blank">this</a>. It’s what I was hoping it would be. Having read it over, it feels a lot like what skill challenges were really trying to be.</p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/07/plot-blocks.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-1564724125430000408Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:37:00 +00002012-07-13T05:44:28.831-07:00abilityanal retentivenessclasscreationdebatedesigndnddoing everything wrongdungeons and dragonsFifth Editionflavorfourth editionhistoryD&D, The Classic Car of Role-playing Games<br />I was having a chat with Friend Ian and Friend Zak about Dungeons &amp; Dragons today. Mostly, we were looking at how to make a better D&amp;D, which seems like a pretty difficult thing to do. See, they made a pretty great D&amp;D when they put together Third Edition. While it wasn’t elegant and seemed to lack focus, the game was well loved for its incredible flexibility, it’s adherence to the game’s roots, the much streamlined system (when compared to Second Edition), and a community-first approach (the OGL in specific) that really made the game shine. <br /><br />One of the things I’ve been talking about a lot lately is tech constriction. Basically, it works like this: when White Wolf created Vampire: The Masquerade, they had a really cool goal – “Make a story-based horror role-playing game” – but they didn’t have the technology they needed to make that goal a reality. You see this a lot in early attempts at narrative-heavy role-playing games, with my favourite example being Skyrealms of Jorune. They did the best they could with what they had, and what they managed to squeeze from the systems of the time was pretty spectacular. It didn’t really lend itself to story-telling horror, but it did provide a cool avenue for Awesomer than Thou “superheroes with fangs” role-playing, and a lot of people really dug on that. <br /><br />When a bunch of years passed, and it was time to look at relaunching the game, the technology available to the designers was significantly advanced to be able to handle more narrative games. But, rather than build a game that leveraged that new tech, they built a game that was a lot like the first version with some streamlining and some clever twists.<br /><br />No one liked it. <br /><br />Now, I personally prefer the New World of Darkness to the Old World of Darkness. But I don’t look at a game with the same eyes that most folk do. I look at games with the eyes of a designer and a retailer, and I can really appreciate the direction they were attempting to drive their line. But it didn’t work for most of the fans of the original game because it was “too different.” Imagine the shitstorm that would have come if they’d actually scrapped their whole system and designed one that was actually well-built for telling stories of personal horror. <br /><br />This is tech constriction. When you publish a popular role-playing game, there is an expectation that future editions of the game are going to be very similar to that game. And that’s fine, it’s an understandable expectation to have, but it really ties designers hands when building a new edition of a game. If you don’t innovate, the game becomes stagnant and no one appreciates the new edition. If you innovate too much, it doesn’t “feel” like the previous editions of the game, and people get upset at having their expectations dashed. <br /><br />Fourth Edition D&amp;D suffered from innovating too much. The game took a new and unexpected direction, moving from comfortable simulation-heavy role-playing into a much more game-centric focus, and that move was jarring to a lot of people. I thought it was a brilliant move myself, because Wizards of the Coast has already exemplified simulation-centric play with Third Edition, and indie games have filled the niche for narrative games to the brim. Still, it wasn’t enough like previous editions of the game, and people railed against that. <br /><br />So what’s the answer? How do you build a better edition of Dungeons &amp; Dragons? How do you build a version of D&amp;D that holds true to everything D&amp;D is about, how do you utilize new technology without alienating your core audience? <br /><br />In Friend Ian’s opinion, the solution is to exemplify the old tech, to give players a reason to love the old busted tech. The comparison he made is that, right now, D&amp;D is a clunky jalopy held together with tape and hope, but what it needs to be is the shiny, perfectly restored classic custom. The 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. The 1971 Barracuda. Shine the old rules up, make them really count, and focus on those things that make D&amp;D what it is. <br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Levels</h2>Most modern role-playing games aren’t using levels as an advancement system. The vast, overwhelming majority of games designed in the past ten years are designed with point-allocation systems, or a system by which use directly affects advancement. Some games, notably Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, use parallel advancement, by which I mean the character does not become statistically better, but instead grows in personality and that new personality changes how the player will play their character. (If you haven’t read Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, I suggest you go buy it immediately, because it’s incredible). <br />Levels are archaic and they tend to make about as much sense as Save vs. Magic Wand. Why does gaining X amount of experience make me universally better at everything I’m good at? Wouldn’t the skills I’m not using fall behind those I’m exercising constantly? <br /><br />But that’s part of this exercise, right? Making all that is old new again. How do you make levels matter more? The team at D&amp;D next have flattened the curve, making each level less statistically important while opening new choices and options for your character. We’re still not really sure what that looks like, exactly, but it’s probably a strong step in the right direction. I need a reason to want to be level 13 as opposed to level 12. So give me those reasons. Give me something at every level that makes me go “What? Really? <em>Really</em>?” Give my fighter a castle at level 10. Let my warlord field armies at level 6. If my mage can’t lift an island out of the sea and build a tower on it at level 12, there’s no reason to be a 12th level wizard. <br /><br />Now, these are obviously just spitballing, but seriously, if you have to do levels, and each level is supposed to be an achievement, you need to make every level a really big deal, and make them something I want to work towards. And that doesn’t just mean cool new attack powers. You need to build systems that are going to make those levels sweet. Like I said, let the warlord field an army, because at level 6 that’s something you seriously need to consider occasionally. Don’t get me wrong, that should definitely cost something. You shouldn’t be able to field an army just because these 13 orcs are kind of fucking with your day without it costing you a small fortune. But we’ll get to wealth in a minute.<br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Hit Points</h2>Hit Points, even as the abstraction they’re made out to be, are sort of dumb. Like many of the weirdest mechanics in role-playing, hit points are a holdover from their wargaming roots, and in a larger-scale combat scenario, they make a fine abstraction of a unit’s ability to take damage and continue to function. A few people die, but it’s not enough to hinder performance. A whole bunch of people die, and the unit dissolves into a scattered rag-tag barely capable of hindering a healthy military force. Even in this case, I think it’s something of a stretch, but if you’re talking large-scale, unless a general dies, your armies should keep ticking away without too much difficulty if they take some casualties.<br /><br />As a measure of an individual’s health, hit points are utterly ridiculous. Let me illustrate with an example. When you’re slicing something that you’re about to cook, and you cut yourself, what’s the first thing you do? If you’re not acting like a huge tough-person, your reaction is very likely “stop everything you’re doing, cover the wound, swear a lot.” This is a normal reflex, and everyone does it (unless they’ve been trained not to, and even then, if you’re not in a scenario where the training fits, you’re still probably going to jump, cover and grumble). This is a shock reflex. In small amounts, shock will keep you alive. In a rough situation, it can kill you.<br /><br />Another illustration! I was watching a great video of a Krav Maga instructor talking about self-defence. I don’t remember much of the video, but there was one thing that really stuck out for me. “No matter how well trained you are, no matter how many martial arts you learn, a fifteen year old with a knife can kill you.” This is a paraphrase, of course, and I have no idea who the original instructor was, but it’s a really interesting point when talking about how much damage a human body can take before it dies. <br /><br />A lot. And not much at all. <br /><br />You’d be surprised what you can live through, and you’d be equally surprised what can kill you. People have survived falling a thousand feet without a parachute. People have survived being shot a dozen times. People have survived horrifying animal attacks and stabbings and hangings and getting hit by lightning three times. And a fifteen year old with a knife can kill you.<br /><br />So how do you make hit points cool? How do you make hit points jump out at me and scream that they need to be a part of a game’s design? Well, D&amp;D Fourth Edition did some things very right with hit points, but didn’t quite hit the mark. First of all, Fourth Edition gave you a <em>lot </em>of hit points compared to other games, because you’re supposed to be a badass. Second, the minion rule was a brilliant stroke that told a very simple story: minions are unimportant; they are mooks that you don’t need to worry about, and shouldn’t feel bad killing; and by extension, the player characters are goddamned heroes because they take a beating and don’t die like normal people.<br /><br />Hit points have been sold, typically, as an abstraction for health, and I think that’s the wrong track. They’re not an abstraction for health, they’re not an abstraction for ducking and dodging and defending yourself and getting worn down (because if that were the case, they would have an affect on your abilities as they depleted). They should be an abstraction of how badass you are. When you take a hit point of damage, you get a wicked Bruce Willis cut on your chin. A single stream of blood runs across your forehead. Your armour dents, your sword chips, you get that single line of red cut across your cheek that is a dire insult to your honour and must be addressed.<br /><br />If you want to make hit points matter, it’s imperative to make them an important part of the game by utilizing them in both flavour and mechanics. Wizards came close to this with the idea of marking a “bloodied” value, a mechanical middle-point to your hit points. Where I think they failed in this endeavour is making the bloodied value really mean something. As it currently sits, being bloodied is something you complain about to your healer and your healer zaps you with some healing. Being damaged is, at current, universally bad. This leads to a proliferation of healers and the horrible “five minute work week” that Game Masters have to constantly struggle against. <br /><br />I want fighters to be rewarded for getting damaged. I want to see paladins and warlords at the hottest when they’re cut up and bruised. I want to see player characters getting pushed to the line and then coming back in a big way. <em>Incentivize </em>getting hurt. Make me want to jump into the fray and get bashed around a little, because I’m at my strongest when I’ve been tossed around a little. Add another tier of damage (Broken, 1/4 total hit points) that unlocks the big moves, the big bonuses, and huge damage. <br /><br />And reverse that for wizards and sorcerers and warlocks and the like. They don’t want to get hurt, they’re not jumping into frays, they need to be protected while they’re slinging their spells or those spells are going to be less effective at Bloodied and catastrophically weak at Broken. It’s not easy to concentrate when you’re bleeding out. We’ll talk more about that when we get to classes.<br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Gold and Wealth</h2>Once upon a time, you got an experience point for every single gold piece you acquired. Seriously. It was a big deal to find a dragon’s hoard, because that meant you were probably going to hit your next level (not that levels really meant anything beyond an achievement unlocking; see above). Gold mattered to the mechanics of the game in a very real way, and that meant that adding up all of your gold pieces was actually sort of fun. <br />Most modern role-playing games have done away with recording every penny on your character sheet.<br /><br />More popular in the current stretch of games is an abstracted “resources” or “wealth” stat that you can use to purchase items you want or need. A few games still keep track of individual credits (Shadowrun, for instance), but if your character sheet has a “resources” score on it, the game is probably new school. <br />Greed is huge in D&amp;D. The First Edition cover is famously a pair of adventurers prying a gem from the eye of a statue they probably shouldn’t be fucking with. Adventurers are in the game for the gold and the experience. But more recent editions of D&amp;D have turned wealth into a way to get that magic item you want than an ends unto itself. <br /><br />I say, bring back the gold/experience track. Make people crave gold itself because it makes you rich and helps you out mechanically at the same time. Add your current gold pieces (not your silver, not your copper, not your electrum, but your GOLD pieces) to your experience. Keep a separate track for experience from gold and experience from adventuring, and add them up at the end of each session.<br /><br />Perhaps more importantly, change the economy of magic items. In specific, take the gold piece cost off of them, because magic items should be damned near priceless. No more the +1 sword, because that shit be whack, yo. More on that when we discuss “equipment.” But, seriously, make it impossible to walk into Ye Olde Magick Shoppe to buy a +2 dagger of slaying. Make buying magic items difficult and incredibly expensive. Make buying potions difficult and incredibly expensive. Make it clear that a peasant could never, with a thousand years of toil and saving, afford a simple +1 ring of protection, because players will think twice about dropping their experience count to buy one, and we want that tension in the game. <br /><br />Then make it matter in the flavour. I live in Canada, so I think I have a better und<img align="right" height="132" src="http://www.thelooniebinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Loonies.jpg" style="display: inline; float: right;" width="233" />erstanding of this problem than some of my southern compatriots. We have yellow dollar coins in Canada. We call them loonies, because we’re funny that way. The picture to the right is a stack of loonies. That’s $17, which isn’t a ton of dough. Each coin is about an inch across. What you’re looking at is a literal handful of money. You could fit seventeen dollars more-or-less comfortably in a single hand. Now, for the sake of our discussion, let’s say you and your crew take down a juvenile red dragon. Looking at the D&amp;D 3.5 stats, a juvenile red dragon is a CR 7 creature, and it usually has three times the treasure of a normal creature of the same level. A normal treasure at seventh level would be 1d12x100gp. I’m going to roll a d12 now. Came up ten. A normal encounter would have 1000gp sitting here, but this is a dragon, so it’s triple that at 3000 gold pieces. <br /><br />That is 176 handfuls of coins. That’s actually more coins than I can imagine with any sort of accuracy. And you’re going to stuff that into some sacks and drag it home? Man, I’ve had a pocket full of loonies before, and it’s not comfortable. Trying to drag home my share of thousands would make me a grumpy dude.<br /><br />Moreover, where the hell are you going to keep all of this money? You can’t just carry it around, because it’s thousands of fucking gold pieces. You have to keep it somewhere, and if a young dragon couldn’t guard it from four asshats like your party, how are you going to make sure that the money stays yours? <br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Alignment</h2>I love the words “alignment system,” when applied to D&amp;D, mostly because it doesn’t really exist. Early on, it seemed like a good way to figure out whose team everyone was on. Are you part of the chaos team or the order team? Good or evil? I have a spell to find out for sure. <br /><br />Later, it became a flavour point. A good character acts in different ways than an evil character at least some of the time, and the guidelines set out in the books tell you what sorts of things people in each alignment do. But boiling complex ethical questions down to a nine point grid is always going to be problematic. Moral relativism is entirely ignored for absolutism, which in itself is problematic because the D&amp;D morality system assumes that the absolutes can be found in North American cultural values. <br /><br />Democracy and personal freedom are not “good” in a society that values adherence to a strict code of conduct and absolute loyalty to one’s liege lord. Indeed, encouraging democratic rebellion eschews the divine right to rule entirely and in such a society would be a heinously evil act of treason. But, because we largely live in mostly democratic nations, we assume that democracy is good and tyranny is evil.<br /><br />Still, it’s a hallmark of the game, and one of its most clearly recognizable symbols. There have been internet memes built around it. People like it. With Fourth Edition D&amp;D, it was made to matter even less than in Third, with spells no longer affecting specific alignments and alignment restrictions being removed from even the clearest example of them (a paladin can only be Lawful Good). Fourth Edition also stripped the system of Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil, assuming that Evil is the Lawful version and Good is of the Chaotic sort unless otherwise specified. Where once there were some minor systematic overlaps in alignment, there are almost none, now. <br /><br />To make alignment important, to make it a focal point of the game’s system, will require something of an overhaul of the way we look at alignments in general. While I desperately hope we never see alignment&nbsp;restrictions ever again (I mean, a paladin is just a warrior for the cause of a god, yeah? There are evil gods.&nbsp;You don’t need a separate class for that.), I think that bringing back alignment-specific effects would be a solid step in the right direction. This should be especially true of the “holy” classes like clerics and paladins, who should deal damage typed to their alignment. Demons should be forced to occasionally take 10 points of “good damage,” while angels should eat “evil damage” for dinner once in a while. In fact, the more closely related you are to a specific alignment, the more damage you should take from its opposite. Make a whole bunch of creatures that are vulnerable to Good Damage. Keep radiant and necrotic damage, because both of those are awesome, but don’t use them in place of <alignment> damage.</alignment><br /><br />Alignment specific bonuses should be applied to gear, as well. Magic the Gathering has this shit locked down, because card colour is basically alignment. One of the cycles from the newest core set gives a creature a strength and toughness bonus for being the right alignment, and also provides an ability typical to that colour’s effects. That’s cool business, and could easily the be ported over to role-playing games.<br /><br />For the record, Neutral shouldn’t get a damage type. It’s also the stupidest of the alignments, and one of the few areas in which I agree with Kevin Siembieda is that “selfish” is a much better description of that alignment set. <br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Vancian Magic</h2>There are two things I hate about Vancian Magic. The first is the forgetting of spells at inconvenient times (like right after I’ve cast the damned thing). The second is the idea that the level of the spell is not the level of the person casting it. Both of those problems got fixed in Fourth Edition, and it’s one of the things people complain about the most readily. “My wizard is too effective. He should be way more horrible than this,” say the grognards. <br /><br />A lot of people have talked at length about Vancian Magic and why it’s good and why it’s horrible. I’m not going to retrace over that conversation. Instead, I’m going to try and find a way to make Vancian Magic the best magic it can be. <br /><br />First of all, going back to levels a bit, if I’m going to lose my abilities after I use them, those abilities are going to need to be really cool. And they’re going to need to be way cooler at every new level. Now, when I say that a spell needs to be cool, I’m not suggesting that it needs to do way more damage or whatever, it just needs to do something that is awesomely flavourful and also useful. Some damage-dealing spells are great, and you can’t build a Vancian magic system without staples like Magic Missile or Fireball. But I need a reason to cast spells that isn’t combat. Or if it is in combat, it shouldn’t be roughly as effective as the ranger’s arrows. A mage’s spells need to do something weird and cool. At first level, it’s not enough to just throw some force at a guy and have him get knocked back a square. I want to throw a mystical orb of glowing green power at him and have his face covered in three fighting squid for a turn. At tenth level, I should be able to turn a castle into a peach that I can carry around in my pocket for a day. At fifteenth level, I should be able to rearrange continents into shapes that please me, and damn the ecological considerations. At twentieth level, I should be able to carve my own face into the moon, where I will smile upon those who make me happy and scowl angrily at those who’ve wronged me. And my scowl should cause your genitals to turn into sea anemones that whistle annoying songs all the time. <br /><br />Seriously, the whole concept of magic in D&amp;D needs an overhaul. Magic shouldn’t be a tool, it should be fucking weird. It should do weird things more often than it does Magic Missile. If you have to have fireballs, have those fire balls carve the runes of my future into the bodies of my enemies, easily readable by wise bison and children, but not by me. If you have to do rope trick, have the portal cut a hole in the meat of the world where we will be warm and safe, but marked forever by our crime (thank you to 7th Sea for that one).<br /><br />This is what magic is, it’s filled with strange flavour and weird concepts that can’t possibly be replicated by current technology. <br /><br />And it’s really time that wizards, sorcerers, warlocks et al get different flavours of magic. When a wizard casts a spell, it’s refined, perfect, as pristine in form as it is in function. It’s focused, simple, elegant, but lacks power, flair, or pizazz. When a sorcerer casts a spell, it’s wild, weird, doesn’t really know what it wants to be until it’s finished, and might not go off properly at all. When a warlock or a cleric casts a spell, it’s not a spell of his or her choosing. No, the choice is left to his or her benefactor, which makes a warlock’s spellcasting effectively political.<br /><br />Make magic cool and weird again. And build the powers of the people who use it with some thought to what sort of magic they wield. <br /><h2><br /></h2><h2> Classes</h2>I like the freedom of a point-buy system, and I love the flavour that comes pouring out of a lifepaths system like Burning Wheel. I absolutely adore the Aspects of FATE and the similar traits of Dogs in the Vineyard. I don’t really dig on classes all that much, because they restrict the focus of my character to whatever settings were determined best by the folk who wrote the class. They certainly have their uses, and they increase grokability in a big way, but what they gain in recognition from the players is lost in a lack of flexibility and real customization. <br /><br />Classes in D&amp;D need to be rethought from the ground up, I feel. Each class needs to find a unique way to interact with each facet of the game. Fighters need to fight, but they should also get better at fighting the more beat up they get and they should get better at their skills while they’re in combat and their equipment should be at its peak in the middle of a brawl. A wizard casts spells, which is neat, but they’re not well suited to combat and should do their best to stay away when the swords swing. They are, however, incredibly useful in a library and their skills get much more relevant when they have a rich pool of knowledge from which to draw. Their equipment works best in universities and labs and their feats give them all sorts of bonuses to knowing stuff. Thieves steal stuff, and sometimes that means getting your hands a little dirty, but the less you’re noticed the better. They get better at fighting when the chips are down, but they look their best when everything is going their way. Their skills work best in silence and darkness; they don’t perform well under bright lights, or when anyone has noticed them. They are incredibly useful in cities and do their best work in dark alleys. These are simple things to talk about, but making them matter in the course of play can be a lot more challenging. Situational bonuses should be built into characters to exemplify what it is they do, where they do it best, and how they get it done.<br /><br />Make fighters better at what they do when they’ve had the crap kicked out of them.<br />Make wizards better at what they do when they have some time to think and a cup of tea,<br />Make thieves better at what they do when they’re on the rooftops and in the alleys.<br />Make clerics better at what they do when they’re facing down the enemies of their church.<br /><br />Give people a situation in which they are better at doing the things they do, and encourage players to work to those strengths. Reward your players for doing things outside of combat that their characters are good at (except fighters, because fighters excel at combat, hence the name). Build role-playing hooks into your characters from the get-go. Build abilities that encourage non-combat situations and enhance exploration.&nbsp;Instead of looking for four basic ideas of what player characters do, look at what each class does, find a way for them to excel at that thing in different circumstances, and build the class around that. Let’s take a look at the fighter and the ranger, for instance.<br /><blockquote><em>The fighter fights. Fighters are at their best in combat. The fighter gets better at things the more damage he or she has taken. The fighter’s skills get better when in a fight. The fighter’s equipment thrives on combat and combat situations. Fighters look their best when they’ve been beaten up.</em><br /><em></em></blockquote><br /><blockquote><em>The ranger hunts. Rangers are at their best in the forest. The ranger gets better at things as he or she fells enemies. The ranger’s skills get better after a fight. The ranger’s equipment thrives in the wilderness. Rangers look their best when they’re travelling.</em></blockquote>These are very different character builds for two martial style characters. Neither is magical, both of them “fight,” but these are two completely different sorts of characters who excel at very different things. The fighter doesn’t care if he or she’s in a forest or a cave; he’s going to fight and fight well. The ranger cares about where he or she is, but only cares about fights after the fact. Building classes this way provides a lot of avenues for archetypes that haven’t been explored a lot, and can help in finding the specific niches between similar characters (wizards and sorcerers for instance). <br /><blockquote><em>The wizard casts spells. Wizards are at their best surrounded by books. The wizard gets better at things as his or her resources improve. The wizard’s skills get better while preparing to cast a spell. The wizard’s equipment thrives in places of learning and knowledge. Wizards look their best when well-rested.</em><br /><em></em></blockquote><br /><blockquote><em>The sorcerer casts spells. Sorcerers are at their best when celebrating. The sorcerer gets better at things as his or her emotional investment gets more intense. The sorcerer’s skills get better when surrounded by strangers. The sorcerer’s equipment thrives on new experiences. Sorcerers look their best at parties.</em></blockquote>Obviously these are just examples, but they build character classes in a direction that creates cool and interesting niches and ties characters to the situations in which they find themselves, which I think is much more important than making sure the party’s meat shield is sticky enough to pull aggro. <br /><br />Kill all of the classes in D&amp;D. Build them up from scratch. Look at what they’re good at, look at where and how they want to be good at it, and find ways to represent those preferences mechanically, and you’ll end up with characters that are much, much cooler in the long run. <br /><br />Obvioulsy, all of this is just my opinion (and, to some extent, Friend Ian’s). But by sanding the rust off the chassis and rebuilding the transmission, D&amp;D might have a lot of life left in her. Rather than looking at ways we can redesign the Mustang, why don’t we see if we can make this one pretty again?http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/07/d-classic-car-of-role-playing-games.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-1931238089159607216Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:00:00 +00002012-07-05T04:03:03.576-07:00businesscomic shopconventiondesignGame Designgame storegaminggenconideasindielectureso you want to work in the games industrythinking too muchworking at a game storeBuilding a Career in the Games IndustryI saw this on Youtube and thought it was pretty great. Marcelo Figueroa is a veteran of the Edition Wars, an AEG alum and knows what he's talking about. It was an enlightening talk (even if I'm sort of late to the game, seeing it some three years late), and it hopefully has something in it that will appeal to you.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/ZF6YiB3pvbo/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZF6YiB3pvbo&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZF6YiB3pvbo&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Also, as an industry professional who is looking to further his career in sales, marketing and management, if someone in the know could fill me in on the Weasel List and Gamer High - assuming these institutions still exist - that would be great.&nbsp;</div>http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/07/building-career-in-games-industry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-2822985008446101442Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:35:00 +00002012-06-30T14:46:12.149-07:00activismawesomebusinessconventiondebatedoing everything wrongfeminism in gaminggenconideasnon-gamersproblemsrantsexismshit that bugs meGenCon 2012: Why “Spouse Activities” is the Worst Thing<p><em>This is my first-ever guest column. The young lady who wrote it doesn’t have a blog of her own, but expressed her concern regarding GenCon’s off-putting programming for non-gamers, and I agreed to share her thoughts on my little corner of the web. I hope you find it as interesting and thought-provoking as I do. </em></p> <p>So I guess I should start by introducing myself. My name is Natalie, I am 20 years old, a child and youth care worker and a nerd. I’ve attended Gen Con once, had an absolute blast and I just bought my badge for this August. There is, however, one thing that still sets me off in a red-faced rage: the “spouse activities” (SPA). Seriously, I’ve screamed in the faces of strangers about this, something I’m not too proud off. What enrages me even more is that in my courtesy Google search I found a few bloggers who were displeased by the issues, frustrated even. But not pissed off. I saw a gap and I plan on filling it.</p> <p><br>Gen Con is amazingly diverse in its attendees and from what meager programing I attended out of the 2+ inch activity book it’s clear to me that the organizers did a damn fine job of providing for every kind of nerd. From table top gamers of all breeds to zombie lovers, anime freaks and LARPers; you name it there was a seminar, class, tournament or show about it. There was also a good selection for maturity/age level. Hit up the hentai cafe or chill with your younglings at the training grounds. No matter who you are or what you like, pull-ups to Depends Gen Con has something for you. Unless you’re female. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is good stuff for the nerd ladies, please refer to the 2+ inch program book. I’m referring to the Con Widow, the poor chick that gets dragged along by their boyfriend/husband to the biggest tabletop geekfest in North America. Upon arriving these ladies aren’t directed to Gen Con, instead they are provided with spouse activities. And what do the organizers think a non-nerd lady wants? Knitting.</p> <p><br>The section for those, mostly female, who are not at the con for the con is full of activities like scrapbooking, beadwork, belly dancing and self-defense. Oh, and then there is “Crochet for Your Gamer” where you can “learn to crochet… so you can make fun little things for the gamer in your life.” The D 20 Girls project is running this event. They are also running “The Red Light District” and “Killer Bunnies: Quest for the Golden Carrot” among others. But not for the Widows. Rather than learning about a Dr. Who RPG (a free event, no experience required) or playing a Killer Bunnies game (always a recipe for fun times) the Widows get to crochet things for their gamer partners. Some, if not most of these events are things I can see being worked into the regular programming. They may not be inherently nerdy but as a family focused con it makes sense to have non-gamer activities for people to attend. And with some creativity any nerd can integrate their new self-defense knowledge into a RPG experience. But nope! Instead the randoms are labeled For Spouses Only and gifted to the partners of nerds in assurance that there is a space for them. A nice, safe and quite space away from all the hustle and bustle of the unwashed masses, not to mention their partners, where non-nerds can pass the days until they go back home. Which is just dumb.</p> <p><br>So, ladies, if you’re at the con with your nerdy lad and you don’t want to game at all, have no fear for there are many other things to do. Into making or watching films? Maybe you could check out a seminar like “Film Budget and Finance” or “Trailer Park Jesus”, one of many featured films. Like anime? Learn with “The Guide to Anime Tropes” or watch with a room full of fellow fans with “Epic Battles of Amine”. Like crafty things? There are classes like “learn to make chainmail” and “21 days to a novel”. Have kids? Take them to the “Peter Pan Dress Parade” or “Create a Game” which as you may have guessed will teach your young geek how to create their very own game. Not to mention a whole butt load of child care giving you the freedom to check out all these events. And then there is the Misfit events section which has “Spot the Geek” a cosplay photo scavenger hunt and “BattleTech: Firestorm Tesla 11 Virtual Reality Cockpits”. That’s right ladies and gents, for 7 minutes you can command a battle mech on a 31st century battlefield. These are all event sections that require no playing of games and many of the events themselves involve less then nerdy things like watching movies or writing a novel. Yet none of them are marketed to Con Widows. So why have a completely different section for Widows full of non-gaming programing when there are already a few non-gaming activity sections?</p> <p><br>If SPA was just another non-gaming category I think it would be pretty damn cool. Learning how to make your own yarn, taking a haunted walking tour of the city and learning the Thriller dance are all fun things that nerds and non-nerds can enjoy. The problem is this: the SPA is girlfriend daycare. Not to be left alone in the con to find the many non-gaming options the lowly Con Widow is dropped off at the SPA center to be entertained until the men folk return home. It is an unnecessary segregation of a group who could be having just as much if not more fun without the penned-in safe zone. There is no need for this category. It perpetuates the misconception that women lack ability or interest in gaming, and more annoyingly that they lack interest in peripheral nerdly pursuits. The insistence that women who do not want to game will be soothed by traditionally feminine hobbies is both condescending and rooted in a strange sort of sexism. For a convention that encourages families to attend it should be reaching out to those with less experience or exposure to the world of geekdom not shutting them up with zumba classes. One massively simple way to fix this would be eliminating the SPA.</p> <p><br>It’s an easy solution; all they have to do is integrate the programming. Have an icon for non-gaming activities instead of activities for non-gamers, any overflow can go towards filling out the Misfit section. Design the programming so that gamers are invited to take part in knitting just as much as non-gamers are invited to take part in a D&amp;D game. Don’t make it so that a person coming into the scene for the first time is shown the door to their roped in section of the party while their partner is off riding in a mech suite simulator.</p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/06/gencon-2012-why-spouse-activities-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-5789463044343109431Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:42:00 +00002012-06-26T13:42:49.982-07:00castle panicgame storemunchkinproblems unique to mereviewssmallworldwhatever wil wheaton reviewswil wheatonworking at a game storeGod Damn You, Wil WheatonI have a new nemesis.* His name is Wil, and he's this ridiculously popular Internet guy. He did some really cool stuff in the 1980s as an actor and now he is a blogger and writer and game designer and basically too cool for school. <br /><br />He's been doing this thing lately, and it's a thing that is really good for the games industry, and I hate him for it because it makes my life moderately more difficult. He has been reviewing games. Good games. Games people then want.<br /><br />And then I can never buy that game for my store again.<br /><br />See, Mr Wheaton, being the incredible nerd icon that he is, has a lot of reach when he reviews a game. He gets a lot of people interested in his game, and then I have people asking me for it. Except, I'm not the only games retailer in Canada. I'm one of hundreds, and all of them are calling the same distributors trying to get a bunch of copies of whatever was just reviewed. In the past six months, I haven't had one request for Castle Panic. This week, I've had a dozen or more. And I know I'm not the only retailer who has to deal with this.<br />So my distributor runs out in the sudden deluge of orders, and then they have to wait for more from the producers of the game, and the producers need to wait to reprint because Wil Wheaton is something like a localized board game Armageddon.<br /><br />What the hell, Wil? How am I supposed to sell people a game I can't get anymore? Why do I have to look like an idiot because you decided to like a game nobody's asked me for in months? At least send me an e-mail or something, letting me know you're going to be publishing a review of Game X so I should stock up In a big way. Or, y'know, return any of my calls. Or just to chat or whatever. Dick.**<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />* For the record, I actually dig Wil Wheaton, and wish him and his all the best in all of their endeavors, even those that have me fielding calls for games I don't have, or have enough of. What he's doing is great for the games industry and I'm really happy that he's devoted some of his time and energy towards introducing people to games they don't own.<br /><br />** Wil Wheaton isn't actually a dick. And I've never actually sent him emails, nor phoned him. Though, having a retailer Advanced Warning list would actually be awesome.http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/06/god-damn-you-wil-wheaton.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-484091900091737675Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:46:00 +00002012-06-25T02:46:59.771-07:00businessdebatednddoing everything wrongdungeonsdungeons and dragonsdungeons dragonsedition warsFifth Editionfourth editiongame storeI'm probably the only oneproblemsshit that bugs methinking too muchthird editionwizards of the coastwotcThe Ghost of D&D Third Edition<p>Wizards of the Coast announced yesterday that they were going to be <a href="http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd%2F4news%2F20120625" target="_blank">re-releasing the Dungeons &amp; Dragons Three point Five core books</a>. I’m sure there are a lot of people who are tickled pink by the news, and as a person who sells D&amp;D books for a living, I’m certainly not against having the version of the game people want to play on my shelf. But it seems like a strange marketing choice to me, especially with D&amp;D Fifth Edition currently in the pipes. </p> <p>When the PDF battle was at its highest pitch, I came out swinging for the minority opinion that it would be deeply silly of Wizards of the Coast to release digital copies of earlier editions of the books. There’s a pretty vocal group of people that are suggesting that it makes good business sense to have all of the various versions of D&amp;D available at once; they’d like to be able to buy First Edition core books and modules and things, and so they assume that there is a sufficient audience to warrant those books’ continued availability. And while that might actually be true, it doesn’t address the fact that Wizards of the Coast is a company that survives primarily by publishing books you don’t own, and that to continue to be successful, they need to be able to sell new and interesting material. You’re quite a bit less likely to buy something new if you can still get the thing that is familiar to you. Pathfinder proved this in a big way, by continuing to support the most recent version of D&amp;D while Wizards of the Coast did its best to kill it so that D&amp;D Fourth Edition could be successful. Pathfinder is a continuous best-seller, not just in my store but in many others, while Fourth Edition languishes under poor reviews and the persistent clarion shriek that it’s “Just like World of Warcraft.” </p> <p>And it’s not because D&amp;D 3.5 is a better game than D&amp;D Fourth. It isn’t a better game than D&amp;D Fourth, though they are radically different in scope and tone. It’s a different game from D&amp;D 3.5, and different isn’t something people, and gamers especially, deal with very well. This fear of change is exactly the reason that D&amp;D Fifth is going to have the same six attributes that the game has had since the beginning of the hobby. It’s the reason Vampire the Requiem is largely vilified when it is <em>just better </em>at what it sets out to do than any version before it. It’s one of the big reasons RIFTS books continue to sell like crazy. People generally don’t like to do new, different, weird things, and the games we play need to account for that trend if they want to be popular. </p> <p>It doesn’t take a marketing genius to see that this is a catastrophically silly move on the part of the company. All of the potential issues that come from releasing PDFs of earlier editions exist here (piracy only marginally less so), with far greater impact on future sales. At this point, putting out a 3.5 Player’s Handbook both detracts from your current line and actively supports a game that has been gnawing away at your player base. This cannot possibly be anything more than a desperate grab for popularity in a beauty pageant Wizards of the Coast has already lost. It stinks of fear and distress from a company that has made a number of critical marketing mistakes in the past few years. The small gains to be had from re-releasing a sure-seller are certain to cause problems in 2013, as the marketing machine for D&amp;D Fifth starts rolling out in earnest. </p> <p>If you absolutely must try and sell older versions of a game, it makes much more sense to at least package those older versions with the edition you’re currently trying to make a market for. Put out a new core set for all four editions of Dungeons &amp; Dragons when Fifth Edition hits stores. When you buy a core set, you get one Fifth Edition book packaged in with it. First Edition comes with the Player’s Handbook. Second Edition comes with the DMG. Third Edition comes with the Monster Manual and Fourth Edition comes with a setting book for whatever the assumed setting of D&amp;D Next is. At least that way, if you sell an old edition of your game to people, they’re getting the thing they want and a pretty decent incentive to give your new game a try. I mean, hey, we’ve already got one of the books, right? </p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/06/ghost-of-d-third-edition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-909658806076940266Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:40:00 +00002012-06-22T03:52:39.263-07:00alephaum shinrikyocharondesignfreeGame Designhomebrewhouse rulesone-page designone-page rpgrandom designrole-playingrole-playing gamerpgsiftumbravirgilSIFT: A Free One-Page Role-Playing Game<p>So, I’ve been pounding my face against the keyboard for the last little bit trying to put together a role-playing game based on Avatar the Last Airbender. There’s a 4E hack for the series, but I don’t think that the D&amp;D treatment really hits on what Avatar was about, so I’ve been trying to mash together a version that hails to some of the better narrative-centric role-playing games of the past little bit. </p> <p>But, I’ve got writers block, mostly in the sense of “I don’t want to work on this project right now.” And partially because my work doesn’t exist until I show it to you.That’s part of why I started a blog in the first place, was to get writing for an audience instead of just putzing around on a project, not finishing it, and not caring because fuck it, no one was ever going to read it anyway. </p> <p>So rather than languish in my feelings of “Writing conflict resolution chapters suuuuuuuuuuuuucks,” I decided to write a new game in the meantime. It’s just one of my little one-page role-playing games, and it’s here for your enjoyment. It’s a military-mystery game based on an alternate reality game. </p> <p>The ARG itself was sort of poorly put together and didn’t make a ton of logical sense, but the people who were invested in it were invested to the hilt. I have some pretty hefty criticisms of it, and those criticisms were eventually responsible for my leaving the game, but this isn’t really the place to air those. In the role-playing game, a United States military operation has recruited civilian help to crack codes and gather intelligence on an important mission. This more-or-less mirrors the ARG (where the role the civilians played was much less clear). There is something crazy going on somewhere in the world, and it’s up to one agent, one strike team and a group of asshats from the internet to stop it. </p> <p>If you’d like to take a look at the game, you can find it <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByDokciRuG6UWVZYblBDdl9lbnM" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>If you’d like to take a look at the source material, you can find most of it <a href="http://siftumbra.wikia.com/wiki/UMBRA_Wiki" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>If you’d like to take a look at the source material for the source material, you can find it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/06/sift-free-one-page-role-playing-game.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27484639.post-7572801853035913847Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:29:00 +00002012-06-21T16:30:59.669-07:00businesscomic shopgame storeso you want to work in the games industrystore newsworking at a game storeSo You Wanna Work in the Games IndustryOne of my most valued co-workers has put in his notice. He’s moving on to bigger things, and I wish him the best in his new ventures. He’s good at what he does, and whoever steps up to take his place has some big shoes to fill. <br><br>That’s put some of my own focus on what it takes to work in the games industry. I’m pretty happy with my job as it is, and while I’m looking at moving on myself in a year or two, whatever I move on to will be involved in games and gaming. It’s an industry I know and I’m good at what I do. There are a lot of people who want to work in this industry, though, and to be perfectly honest, most of them aren’t going to and aren’t suited to it. For those of you reading who would like to work in the industry, whatever piece of the industry you’re looking at, I’ve compiled this post to aid you in that endeavour. Hopefully, it helps. <br> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>You Don’t Need a Degree, Go Work at McDonalds</h3><br>The co-worker who is leaving us has a degree in English, and it serves him fairly well. I don’t have a degree in anything, and that’s served me fairly well. What we both have is experience working shitty jobs. And that’s really important, because what you’re applying for at the entry level in games is invariably a shitty job.<br><br>You’re going to be a lackey to begin with. You’re going to stock shelves or alphabetize games or dust or shrink wrap millions of books. Sometimes you’re going to have to lift heavy stuff. None of this is glamorous, none of it shows up in your school transcripts, and we can’t really tell what sort of a worker you’ll be from a blank resume. <br><br>If you want entry-level work in the games industry, you need to work shitty jobs first. Those are what we’re looking for: are you willing to do occasionally crappy work, and are you good enough at that sort of work that you can keep a job doing it for a while? <br> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>You Need to Know Your Stuff</h3><br>This one should probably speak for itself, but you need to know what you’re talking about. Play games. Play a <em>lot </em>of games. Read gaming blogs. Keep up on news and rumours. Become involved in forums. Talk about game design. Talk about organized play. Get involved in organized play. Learn. Actively go out and learn more about what you’re aiming to do. <br><br>I’ve been working in the games industry for just over five years, but I have over twenty years of experience with hobby gaming. If you want to steal my job, you will need more than that (and you’ll need to convince my boss that you’re worth more to him than I am, and if that’s true, we can’t afford you). If you want to get a&nbsp; job selling Dungeons &amp; Dragons, you need to play some Dungeons &amp; Dragons.<br><br>Likewise, if you’re going to write dialogue trees, you should probably be a solid writer. Designing systems? Might want to know something about design. And games. And games design. And math. Programming a computer game? Best know some programming. And even selling D&amp;D requires that you know something about sales, and specifically the sale of intangibles (because while the book itself might be an object someone can buy, what you’re really trying to sell is <strong>fun</strong>). If you want to work in a specific job, you need to know how to do most of that job. <br><br>Note that I didn’t say you need to know how to do the whole job. I didn’t know everything there was to know about being a games manager when I started being a games manager. I had to learn some stuff on the job. Merchandising, event management, ordering, these were new things to me. But I knew games and I knew how to sell stuff, and that’s the biggest part of the job. If you don’t know how to do at least the basics of the job, no one is going to hire you on. <br><br>To learn those things, sometimes you need to do stuff that isn’t directly related to the job you want to be doing. I used to sell timeshare. That was where I learned to sell stuff and got some experience under my belt. <br> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>Know Your Abilities</h3><br>Not everyone is a salesman. Not everyone knows how to program. Not everyone is a writer. Not everyone is an artist. But you, you are good at something, and that something can probably translate into the games industry somehow. Find out what you’re good at, and get as good at that as you can be. Then find ways to apply that thing to the world of games. <br><br>A lot of people start out in Quality Assurance when they’re trying to break into video games. And for a lucky few, that’s a good way to break into the games industry. For a whole lot of others, it’s a lot of backbreaking labour in an industry that doesn’t care about the guys doing the backbreaking labour. When’s the last time you heard of a famous game tester? How about a famous game designer? <br><br>But Quality Assurance isn’t the only entry-level position at a game company, and if you’re not classically “entry level,” you increase your chances of getting a better job exponentially. If you’re a pretty good programmer, you should apply for programming positions. If you’re a decent writer, apply for positions in design or writing. If you’re a kick-ass salesman, sales and marketing always need more feet on the ground. And all of these positions are going to come into contact with the parts of the company you’re actually trying to break into. And if you want to break into a career in games that has a few different options going forward, why not do something that doesn’t suck as a baseline? <br> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>Know Who You’re Working For</h3><br>I knew about Warp One long before I’d ever walked through the door. Back in the nineties, a friend of mine used to run a comic shop called Front Page Comics in the thriving metropolis of Stettler, Alberta. The shop did pretty well for itself, and was my first real introduction to nerd culture as a whole. When I was looking to get into the industry myself, I foolishly thought the best way to do that would be to open my own store, and I went about thrashing around like an idiot for a few months trying to do just that. When I went to Jeff for advice, he told me “If you want to make money at this, be like Warp One.” <br><br>Fast forward a whole lot of years, and I live a few blocks away from Warp One, slinging pitas at the local Pita Pit. It’s not a terrible job, and it’s a pretty great place to live, and one day my girlfriend comes into the Pit and says “Warp One is hiring. You should drop off a resume.” I’d been in there a handful of times, picking up a copy of Secrets of Xen’Drik for Eberron and a horrible 3.5 Africa-inspired rulebook, but it hadn’t even occurred to me to drop off a resume. When I finally did, I was hired on the spot.<br><br>I included a list of all the games I’ve played and/or still play on the back of my resume. It was a long list.<br> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>Be Awesome</h3> <div>&nbsp;</div>I can’t really teach you this one. Ironically, I think it’s the most important point. You are going to need to fit in with the rest of the crew where you work. A lot of employers don’t hire for talent or education, especially in the games industry. They hire for personality. You need to be personable. You need to be generally likeable, or convince whoever is doing the hiring that you can be, and if you force it, people can tell. <br><br>I’m not the hiring authority at our store, but I take in a few resumes a week. Some of them get put in the File. Others get put directly into the garbage. The difference is the first impression they gave me. The ones that get put into the File are the ones that I could possibly see myself working with in the future. The ones that go into the circular file have probably failed somewhere, and it’s usually at this point. <br><br>When we keep a resume on file, by the bye, it’s kept in an enormous stack of other resumes. Sometimes for a really long time. Sometimes forever. But if you made it that far, that means that either someone who doesn’t think like me got your resume in there, or someone at our store thought you were cool enough to vet.<br><br>And if someone at our store thinks you’re cool enough to vet, other nerd locations are going to think you’re pretty cool too.<br><br> <h3>Playing Games for a Living</h3> <div>&nbsp;</div>The people who work in this industry don’t do it for the money or the glamour. You aren’t going to make more than a decent living wage in this industry. Working in timeshare, I made a lot more money for a lot less work (and those of you who know me personally know how little work I must be talking about here…), but I choose to do this because I love it. I love games. I love gamers. I love events that bring people together and create shared experiences. And I get to play games for a living, which is pretty great.<br><br>If you’ve got what it takes, maybe you can too. http://giantsbridge.blogspot.com/2012/06/so-you-wanna-work-in-games-industry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Kristoffer Stormlord)0